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The story
Founded by Adoniram Judson Gordon in 1889.1
In 1889 Adoniram Judson Gordon founded the school, Boston Missionary Training Institute, in the Fenway–Kenmore neighborhood of Boston at the Clarendon Street Baptist Church to train Christian missionaries for work in what was then the Congo Free State. Progressive at its inception in 1889, the school admitted both men and women of various ethnicities. It was renamed Gordon Bible College in 1916 and expanded to Newton Theological Institution facilities along the Fenway, into a facility donated by Martha Frost in 1919. Frost, a widowed Bostonian with several properties in the city, provided a significant philanthropic gift. In 1921, the school was renamed Gordon College of Theology and Missions.
In the early 1950s, a Gordon student named James Higginbotham approached Frederick H. Prince about selling his 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) estate to the college after learning of recent property viewings by the United Nations and Harvard University. In 1955, Gordon developed into a liberal arts college with a graduate theological seminary and moved to its present several-hundred-acre Wenham campus north of Boston. Gordon sold its Boston campus on Evans Way to Wentworth Institute of Technology. The Prince Memorial Chapel on the Wenham campus (since replaced) was named for Frederick Prince, and the Prince residence was named Frost Hall after Martha Frost.
In 1958, Gordon College instituted a core curriculum. In the 1950s it launched its first study-abroad program, European Seminar.
In 1962, the school changed its name to Gordon College and Divinity School. In 1970, the Gordon Divinity School separated from the college to merge with the Conwell School of Theology, once part of Temple University, to form the Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts.
Barrington College, founded in 1900 as the Bethel Bible Institute in Spencer, Massachusetts, later relocated to Dudley, Massachusetts, and then to Providence, Rhode Island. It took the name Barrington after the campus was moved to Barrington, Rhode Island, in 1959. Barrington merged with Gordon College in 1985, forming a United College of Gordon and Barrington.
2014 discrimination controversy
On July 1, 2014, Gordon College President D. Michael Lindsay was one of fourteen leaders of religious and civic organizations who signed a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama about an executive order he was contemplating that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The letter asked the president to include language that would exempt religious organizations from the executive order's requirements, suggesting he "find a way to respect diversity of opinion... in a way that respects the dignity of all parties". They suggested the exemption be based on language the U.S. Senate had recently added as an amendment to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Obama did not use the ENDA amendment's language when he issued his order on July 21 but left in place a narrower exemption established with respect to federal contractors in 2002 by President George W. Bush's Executive Order 13279.
In response, on July 9, Salem, Massachusetts, Mayor Kimberley Driscoll ended Gordon College's contract to manage and maintain the city's Old Town Hall, citing a city ordinance that prohibits Salem from contracting with entities that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Gordon's contract with the city would otherwise have expired on September 1. For similar reasons, in August, the Lynn Public Schools ended its relationship with the college, which had provided students to work without pay in the schools as part their training toward degrees in education and social work.
In late July, the Peabody Essex Museum ended its academic relationship with the Gordon museum studies program, later withdrawing its support for Gordon's grant application to the National Endowment for the Humanities that aimed at funding an expansion of its museum studies program. In mid-September the New England Association of Schools and Colleges gave the college a year to report on how its non-discrimination policies met the organization's standards for accreditation. At its April 2015 meeting, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges affirmed that Gordon's accreditation remained in good standing, with no further action required by the Commission at that time.
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Conservative legal organizations have offered to represent the college in lawsuits that would argue that severing ties to the school constituted retaliation for the exercise of free speech and the practice of religion. Lindsay declined those offers and later said he would not have signed the letter had he anticipated the reaction and the impact on Gordon. The school subsequently reviewed its code of conduct, which, in addition to banning sex outside of marriage, bans homosexual practice. Based on that review, Lindsay announced that "its policy barring student or faculty sex out of heterosexual marriage will remain as is." In addition, Gordon College rolled out several initiatives aimed at preventing bullying of gay, lesbian, transsexual, and bisexual students.
Lawsuits
In 2015, Lauren Barthold, associate professor in the department of philosophy, filed a lawsuit against the college for retaliating against her because she publicly disagreed with the college's President D. Michael Lindsay who sought to allow federal contractors, on the basis of religion, to discriminate against LBGTQ individuals in hiring. The lawsuit contends that the college violated state laws protecting against retaliation. As part of a joint resolution, Prof. Barthold resigned in 2016.
In 2017, the college was sued by Margaret DeWeese-Boyd, associate professor in the department of sociology and social work. DeWeese-Boyd filed a complaint in Essex Superior Court claiming that the college's President Lindsay and Provost Janel Curry discriminated against her because of her gender and denied her promotion to full professorship for advocating against the school's LGBTQ policies. The college filed a motion seeking a summary judgment to determine whether the ministerial exception clause barred DeWeese-Boyd from suing. In November 2019, both parties appeared before the court for a hearing and DeWeese-Boyd argued that she never worked as a minister with the college. On April 2, 2020, Judge Jeffrey T. Karp of the Massachusetts Superior Court ruled against the ministerial exception defense. This decision was appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) based on the July 2020 Supreme Court decision handed down in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru. The SJC upheld the Superior Court decision in an opinion authored by Justice Scott L. Kafker. The United States Supreme Court declined a request to review the SJC's decision.
2020 tuition decrease
In the October 2020, Gordon College announced a 33% reduction in tuition from $56.7k sticker price to $37.9k, joining two other CCCU schools in bringing tuition costs more in line with what a typical family would consider 'affordable.' The college notes that this reduction is made possible due to its Faith Rising capital campaign, which has expanded its base endowment by $125 million in the past year (250%), coupled with 24% debt reduction. Scholarships will be adjusted accordingly, with current students allowed to choose which arrangement they prefer. The reduction took effect in the fall semester of 2021.
Previously, in the fall of 2019, Gordon received the largest donation in its history, an anonymous gift of $75.5 million, with additional commitments of an additional $50 million, substantially increasing an endowment of $50 million and resulting in a 15% increase in college-funded student financial aid.
Presidents
Presidents of the college have included:
A. J. Gordon (Adoniram Judson) (1889–1895)
Nathan R. Wood (1919–1944)
T. Leonard Lewis (1944–1959)
James Forrester (1960–1968)
Harold John Ockenga (1969–1976)
Richard Gross (1976–1992)
R. Judson Carlberg (1992–2011)
D. Michael Lindsay (2011–2021)
Mike Hammond (2021-present)
From Wikipedia’s article on Gordon College (Massachusetts), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5