Gettysburg College


Gettysburg College is a private liberal arts college in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1832, the campus is adjacent to the Gettysburg Battlefield. In fall 2025, the college enrolled 2,086 students.
The school hosts 24 NCAA Division III men's and women's teams, known as the Bullets, and many club, intramural, and recreational sports programs.

History

Founding and early roots

Gettysburg College was founded in 1832 as a sister institution for the Lutheran Theological Seminary; the latter is now a campus of the United Lutheran Seminary. Both owe their inception to Thaddeus Stevens, a Radical Republican and abolitionist from Gettysburg. The college's original name was Pennsylvania College; it was founded by Samuel Simon Schmucker.
In 1839, seven years after Gettysburg College was first founded, doctors George McClellan, Samuel George Morton, and others, founded the Medical School of Pennsylvania College in Philadelphia. The school had money troubles within four years, forcing all founding members to leave their posts. After a failed agreement to combine with the Philadelphia College of Medicine in 1858, the college was forced to close the medical school in 1861. Students from the seceding southern states had withdrawn to return home, leaving it without adequate revenue.

Battle of Gettysburg

In June 1863, southern Pennsylvania was invaded by Confederate forces during the Gettysburg campaign. Many local militia forces were formed around the area between Chambersburg and Philadelphia to face the oncoming foe.
Among these units was Gettysburg's 26th Pennsylvania Emergency Militia Regiment. Composed mostly of students from the college and seminary, the 26th PEMR was mustered into service on June 22, 1863. Four days later, the students saw combat just north of town, skirmishing with advanced units of Confederate division commander Jubal A. Early. Casualties were light on both sides, but about 100 of the militiamen were captured and paroled.
During the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Hall, also known as Old Dorm, was used as both a signal corps station and field hospital. Due to the geographic position it held, it was used by both Confederate and Union troops at different points during the battle.
On November 19, 1863, college president Henry Louis Baugher gave the benediction at the ceremony opening the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg; speaking after Abraham Lincoln. Classes were cancelled at the college and students and faculty walked with the parade to the cemetery to hear the now famous Gettysburg Address. This walk was later recreated for the now annual tradition of the "First Year Walk." Baugher was the president of Gettysburg College from 1850 until his death in 1868.
Due to its close relationship with this crucial battle, Gettysburg College hosts a number of activities and awards:
  • Pennsylvania Hall, located in the center of campus, was occupied by both Union and Confederate forces during the battle. Today, a Civil War era-style flag flies above the building, which was used as a lookout position and a field hospital during the battle.
  • In 1982, professor and historian Gabor Boritt founded the Civil War Institute, which hosts annual seminars and tours on Civil War themes. Scholarships are granted to high school students and history teachers to attend the week-long summer event.
  • Since 1998, the "Gettysburg Semester", a semester-long immersion in Civil War academic study has been offered.
  • Gettysburg College students can elect to pursue a unique interdisciplinary minor in Civil War Era Studies. Requirements include a general introduction course about the Civil War and a capstone senior-level seminar. Students must also select four classes of at least two disciplines. Classes offered include military history, economics of the American South, Civil War literature, films about the Civil War, and gender ideology in the Civil War.
  • The Lincoln Prize has been awarded annually since 1991 for the best non-fiction historical work on the Civil War.
  • Starting in 2005, the Michael Shaara Prize has been awarded for excellence in Civil War fiction. Shaara was the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1974 novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels.
  • Author Mark Nesbitt's Ghosts of Gettysburg: Spirits, Apparitions and Haunted Places of the Battlefield claims several sightings of paranormal activity on the campus, most notably in Pennsylvania Hall.

    Gettysburg College in the 19th-Century

Following the war, the college was racked with repairs and financial difficulties as well as debates over the degree that Lutheran theology was to be part of the teaching curriculum. This era was characterized by the enlargement of the campus grounds, advances in scientific education, the addition of new endowed professorships, and a growing student body, including the admission of the college's first female students. Beulah Tipton entered Gettysburg in 188, becoming its first female student, however illness cut her studies short, and she did not graduate. The first female graduates of Gettysburg College were Margaret Himes and Cora Hartman, who joined the school in 1890.
This period was also marked by the construction of many new campus buildings including Stevens Hall in 1867, an observatory in 1874, Glatfelter Hall in 1889, Brua Chapel in 1890, and McKnight Hall in 1898.

Relationship with the Eisenhowers

Early in his military career, Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, lived in a house in Gettysburg that was across the street from the college. Both were fond of the town, so they decided to retire to a working farm adjacent to the battlefield after Eisenhower left the army. It was there that President Eisenhower recuperated from his 1955 heart attack.
While living in Gettysburg, Eisenhower became involved with Gettysburg College. He served on the Gettysburg College board of trustees, and he was given an office, which he used when writing his memoirs. Eisenhower's old office is now named Eisenhower House and is occupied by the college's office of admissions. Eisenhower's grandson, David, and his granddaughter Susan continue a certain level of family involvement with the institution.
Today the Eisenhower Institute, a nationally recognized center for leadership and public policy based in Gettysburg and Washington, D.C., is formally recognized as a distinctive program of the college.

Campus

The college is located on a campus adjacent to the Gettysburg National Military Park. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is from Harrisburg, from Baltimore, from Washington, D.C., from Philadelphia, from New York City, and from Boston.
The college's main campus has over 90 buildings, many of which are historically relevant, and is roughly divided in half by Pennsylvania Hall. The northern half contains Eddie Plank Gym, Masters Hall, Musselman Library, the College Union Building, the College Dining Center, Briedenbaugh Hall, Weidensall Hall, and several first-year residence halls and fraternities. A section of this part of campus known as "Stine Lake" is not actually a lake but rather a quad located outside of the library. Prior to the Musselman Library being built in the late 1970s, and due to Gettysburg's wet climate and drainage issues, the quad and library site were prone to accumulating water, creating a large, muddy "lake" of sorts. Today, Stine Lake does not flood, but the name has stuck, to the confusion of first-year students. Additionally, the College Dining Center is known to students and faculty as "Servo," after the now defunct 1980s food service company, Servomation.
The southern half of the main campus includes McKnight Hall, Glatfelter Hall, Schmucker Hall, Brua Hall, and several fraternities. Over the last half-century, the campus has expanded considerably to include land to the east of North Washington Street and to the west of the traditional campus. In that time, the campus has undergone many renovations, with buildings being added and removed.
Since approximately 96% of students live on campus, most of this additional land is dedicated to housing. It also includes the college chapel, the admissions building, a large gymnasium and field house complex, and several athletics fields. The college has also purchased or leased many buildings for student housing, including residences on Washington Street, Carlisle Street, Middle Street, and Stratton Street.

The Majestic Theater

In 1925, Henry Scharf built the Majestic Theater as an expansion to the historic Gettysburg Hotel, located in the center of town. Originally, the building featured a main room that seated 1,200 patrons. In the 1950s, performances in the Theater were attended by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife, often with world leaders or visitors. When he was spending the night in his Gettysburg residence, President Eisenhower used the theater's ballroom as an official White House Press Room for news conferences. The theater was also the location for the world premiere of the civil war epic Gettysburg, produced by Ted Turner. In November 2005, the theater underwent a $20 million renovation process, with the main room being restored to its former glory and the addition of two new nightly cinemas. The theater is the location for the college's Sunderman Conservatory of Music performances, as well as musical theater performances and outside guests. Many traditions and orientation events also occur in the building, which seats 816 individuals in a multi-level main room.

Academic facilities

Library

Musselman Library provides access to books, journals, videos, sound recordings, rare books, and manuscripts, many in online format. The online catalog is freely available and provides a description of the books, DVDs, and CDs in the collection. The journal locator provides a list of online and print journals in the collection. A list of the online databases is available on the library's website. Exhibits are displayed throughout the library and are updated on a regular basis. The library maintains Gettysburg College's institutional repository, The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College, a collection of scholarly and creative works produced by faculty, students, and other members of the Gettysburg College community.
Special Collections and College Archives, located on the fourth floor of the library, collects primary sources including rare books, manuscripts, maps, art works, sound recordings, photographs, and other materials which support the curriculum. Special Collections is also home to the College Archives, which preserves records that document college activities, policies, and programs. Rotating exhibits are on display in the Reading Room. Selected items and collections have been digitized and are available via GettDigital.
The building was designed by architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen, who intended the building to complement Glatfelter Hall. Jacobsen referred to the architectural style as "abstract Romanesque". The building project commenced thanks to a large gift from the Emma G. Musselman Foundation. Construction began in 1979 and the building opened on April 22, 1981. Books and other materials were transferred from Schmucker Memorial Library to Musselman Library via a human chain of students, faculty and others. In 1986, Jacobsen won both the Award for Excellence in Institutional Masonry Design and the Grand Award for Excellence in Masonry Design for his design of Musselman Library.