This weekend, when the city of Wheaton wraps up its yearlong sesquicentennial celebration, Wheaton College will begin honoring its own 150th anniversary.

Through the rest of 2009 and into 2010, the Christian liberal arts college will mark its founding in 1860.

On Thursday, July 2 night, city and college officials will hold a small ceremony at this week’s Municipal Band concert at Memorial Park. At the city’s Fourth of July parade on Saturday, July 4, the college will be represented by a 30-foot float featuring the campus’ iconic Blanchard Hall, said Marcy Hintz, who is coordinating the school’s sesquicentennial.

Later in the yearlong commemoration, the school will release a sesquicentennial coffee-table book, she said, and this summer a Web site will explore the college’s history. It will link from the college’s main Web site, www.wheaton.edu.

Near August the school will complete a permanent historical exhibit in the student center. The roughly 200-square-foot display will cover seminal moments in Wheaton College’s history.

“We’ll be highlighting early graduates of color, the role of women at Wheaton College,” said Head of Archives David Malone, also an assistant professor of library science. “(We will be) looking at early missionaries — those who went out from the college into the world — and looking at some of the founding principles.”

The college will not be holding any particularly unique celebrations this year, Hintz said.
Rather, the traditional calendar of events will be set against the anniversary. For instance, at this fall’s Homecoming, alumni and students will mark the multiple generations at the school.

“On those speaking occasions, the president will certainly articulate a look back/looking ahead theme,” she said.

The focus on looking ahead will have particular importance this year. College President Duane Liftin is set to retire next year after 17 years in the post.

Wheaton College was created after Jonathan Blanchard, an academic and an abolitionist, took over the precursory Illinois Institute.

He suggested expanding the struggling school and re-establishing it as Wheaton College.
Seven presidents have led the school since then.

Drawing a parallel through the generations is one of the themes of the sesquicentennial. Hintz cited a Bible verse she said the school will be weighing this year: Psalm 145:4, which says “One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your might acts.”

“Looking at Wheaton (College’s) history, that concept has never changed,” she said. “Through every generation, of course the contemporary events have changed, but there’s been a unanimous Christian response.”