Newberry College

Just north of downtown you’ll find the scenic, 90-acre campus of Newberry College (2100 College St., 803/276-5010, www.newberry.edu [1]). Founded in 1828, today this Lutheran-affiliated college hosts about 900 students on its calming grounds, which center on the abundantly landscaped quadrangle, a legacy of the school’s founder, the Rev. John Bachman, amateur naturalist and close friend of the great John James Audubon.

There’s an ornate copy of the Book of Kells in the special collections room of the Wessels Library just off the quad. A short walk to the other side of the quad is the Wiles Chapel with its beautiful stained-glass windows.

A sore topic in Newberry [2] surrounds the college, specifically the forced retirement in 2008 of its sports teams’ moniker of the “Indians.” Under pressure from a new policy of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Newberry appealed, saying that its team name did not flout the directive against “hostile and abusive” imagery.

While the NCAA allowed larger and wealthier schools such as Florida State University (the Seminoles) and the University of Illinois (the Fighting Illini) to keep their Native American–inspired names, the body denied Newberry’s appeal and threatened sanctions if it did not comply.

In true South Carolina tradition, the school originally intended to defy the NCAA ruling and continue calling its teams “the Indians.” However, they’ve since relented, and even the local “Indian Club” of boosters is now simply the Athletic Club, while the erstwhile mascot of the sports teams, for the time being, is simply a large “N.”

While there are surely two sides to every story, the stigma of racial insensitivity is ironic considering that Newberry College’s founder, Rev. Bachman, was one of the first Southern pastors to argue against slavery. Each spring the college hosts the John Bachman Symposium (www.johnbachman.org [3], free) to celebrate his life and writings.