Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Lafayette College
Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, is an independent, undergraduate, coeducational, residential institution. It was founded in 1826 by citizens of Easton led by local lawyers James Madison Porter, Joel Jones (Yale), and an amateur botanist and mineralogist Jacob Wagener.
The initial prospectus called for a college "combining a course of practical Military Science with the course of Literature and General Science pursued in the Colleges of our Country."
Porter had met the French Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette during his farewell tour of America, and urged that they name the new college for him as "a testimony of respect for (his) talents, virtues, and signal services .... the great cause of freedom."
The governor of Pennsylvania signed the new college's charter on March 9, 1826. But it was not until 1832 that the Rev. George Junkin took up the charter and moved the curriculum and student body of the Manual Labor Academy of Pennsylvania from Germantown, Pennsylvania.
Francis March taught at Lafayette, and became the first superintendant of the Oxford English Dictionary's American reading programme.
As of 2004, Lafayette has more than 2300 students.
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Notable alumni
- Joseph F. Crater, Class of 1910 - Associate Justice of New York Supreme Court; object of famous, unsolved disappearance case from 1930
- Philip S. Hench, Class of 1916 - 1950 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Haldan K. Hartline , Class of 1923 - 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- William E. Simon, Class of 1952 - "Energy Czar" under President Richard Nixon; former President of U.S. Olympic Committee
- Joel Silver, Class of 1974 - head of Hollywood's Silver Pictures and producer of The Matrix Trilogy; while attending Lafayette, he helped form the first collegiate Ultimate Frisbee club (in 1970)
Other notable attendees
- Stephen Crane, author of "The Red Badge of Courage" - attended for one semester
- Theodore Roethke, poet
Sports
- Affiliation: NCAA Division I-AA
- Conference: Patriot League
- Team name: Leopards
- Team colors: Maroon and white
External links
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