Hobart and William Smith Colleges

History

Originally founded as Hobart College for men and William Smith College for women, today's institution – Hobart and William Smith Colleges – is united and has always had one campus and one faculty.

The institution began on the western frontier as the Geneva Academy. After some setbacks and disagreement among trustees, the academy suspended operations in 1817. By the time Bishop John Henry Hobart, of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, first visited the city of Geneva in 1818, the doors of Geneva Academy had just closed. Yet, Geneva was a bustling Upstate New York city on the main land and stage coach route to the West. Bishop Hobart had a plan to reopen the academy at a new location, raise a public subscription for the construction of a stone building, and elevate the school to college status. Roughly following this plan, Geneva Academy reopened as Geneva College in 1822 with conditional grant funds made available from Trinity Church in New York City. Geneva College was renamed Hobart College in 1852 in honor of its founder, Bishop Hobart.

William Smith College was founded in 1908, originally as William Smith College for Women. Its namesake and founder was a wealthy local nurseryman, benefactor of the arts and sciences, and philanthropist. The school arose from negotiations between William Smith, who sought to establish a women's college, and Hobart College President Langdon C. Stewardson, who sought to redirect Smith's philanthropy toward Hobart College. Smith, however, was intent on establishing a coordinated, nonsectarian women's college, which, when realized, coincidentally gave Hobart access to new facilities and professors. The two student bodies were educated separately in the early years, even though William Smith College was a department of Hobart College for organizational purposes until 1943. That year, after a gradual relaxation of academic separation, William Smith College was formally recognized as an independent college, co-equal with Hobart. Both colleges were reflected in a new, joint corporate identity.

Early history and growth

Geneva Academy

Geneva Academy was founded in 1796 when Geneva was just a small frontier settlement. It is believed to be the first school formed in Geneva. The area was considered "the gateway to Genesee County" and was in the early stages of development from the wilderness.

In 1809, the trustees of the academy appointed Rev. Andrew Wilson, formerly of the University of Glasgow in Scotland as head of the school. He remained until 1812 when Ransom Hubell, a graduate of Union College, was made principal.

Geneva College

The Regents granted the full charter on February 8, 1825, and at that time, Geneva Academy officially changed its name to Geneva College. Rev. J. Adams was president of the college as of 1827.

The "English Course," as it was known, was a radical departure from long-established educational usage and represented the beginning of the college work pattern found today.

Geneva Medical College

Geneva Medical College was founded on September 15, 1834, as a department of Geneva College. The medical school was founded by Edward Cutbush, who also served as the first dean of the school.

In an era when the prevailing conventional wisdom was no woman could withstand the intellectual and emotional rigors of medical education, Elizabeth Blackwell, (1821–1910) applied to and was rejected – or simply ignored – by 29 medical schools before being admitted in 1847 to the Medical Institution of Geneva College.

The medical faculty, largely opposed to her admission but seemingly unwilling to take responsibility for the decision, decided to submit the matter to a vote of the students. The men of the college voted to admit her.

Blackwell graduated two years later, on January 23, 1849, at the top of her class to become the first woman doctor in the Northern Hemisphere. "The occasion marked the culmination of years of trial and disappointment for Miss Blackwell, and was a key event in the struggle for the emancipation of women in the nineteenth century in America."

Blackwell went on to found the New York Infirmary for Women and Children and had a role in the creation of its medical college. She then returned to her native England and helped found the National Health Society and taught at the first college of medicine for women to be established there.

Hobart College

The school was known as Geneva College until 1852, when it was renamed in memory of its most forceful advocate and founder, Bishop Hobart, to Hobart Free College. In 1860, the name was shortened to Hobart College.

Hobart College of the 19th century was the first American institution of higher learning to establish a three-year "English Course" of study to educate young men destined for such practical occupations as "journalism, agriculture, merchandise, mechanism, and manufacturing", while at the same time maintaining a traditional four-year "classical course" for those intending to enter "the learned professions." It also was the first college in America to have a dean of the college.

Notable 19th-century alumni included Albert James Myer, Class of 1847, a military officer assigned to run the United States Weather Bureau at its inception, was a founding member of the International Meteorological Organization, and helped birth the U.S. Signal Corps, and for whom Fort Myer, Virginia, is named; General E. S. Bragg of the Class of 1848, colonel of the Sixth Wisconsin Regiment and a brigadier general in command of the Iron Brigade who served one term in Congress and later was ambassador to Mexico and consul general of the U.S. in Cuba; two other 1848 graduates, Clarence A. Seward and Thomas M. Griffith, who were assistant secretary of state and builder of the first national railroad across the Mississippi River, respectively; and Charles J. Folger, Class of 1836, a United States Secretary of the Treasury in the 1880s.

Until the mid-20th century, Hobart was strongly affiliated with the Episcopal Church and produced many of its clergy. While this affiliation continues to the present, the last Episcopal clergyman to serve as President of Hobart (1956–1966) was Louis Melbourne Hirshson. Since then, the president of the colleges has been a layperson.

During World War II, Hobart College was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.

William Smith College

Toward the end of the 19th century, Hobart College was on the brink of bankruptcy. It was through the presidency of Langdon Stewardson the college obtained a new donor, nurseryman William Smith. Smith had built the Smith Opera House in downtown Geneva and the Smith Observatory on his property when he became interested in founding a college for women, a plan he pursued to the point of breaking ground before realizing it was beyond his means. As publicized in The College Signal on October 7, 1903, "William Smith, a millionaire nurseryman, will found and endow a college for women at Geneva, N. Y., to be known as the William Smith College for Women The institution will be in the most beautiful section. One building is to cost $150,000. Mr. Smith maintains the Smith observatory there." In 1903, Hobart College President Langdon C. Stewardson learned of Smith's interest and, for two years, attempted to convince him to make Hobart College the object of his philanthropy. With enrollments down and its resources strained, Hobart's future depended upon an infusion of new funds.

Unable to convince Smith to provide direct assistance to Hobart, President Stewardson redirected the negotiations toward founding a coordinated institution for women, a plan that appealed to the philanthropist. On December 13, 1906, he formalized his intentions; two years later William Smith School for Women – a coordinated, nonsectarian women's college – enrolled its first class of 18 students. That charter class grew to 20 members before its graduation in 1912.

In addition, Smith's gift made possible the construction of the Smith Hall of Science, to be used by both colleges, and permitted the hiring, also in 1908, of three new faculty members who would teach in areas previously unavailable in the curriculum: biology, sociology, and psychology.

World War II

Between 1943 and 1945, Hobart College trained almost 1,000 men in the U.S. Navy's V-12 program, many of whom returned to complete their college educations when the post-World War II GI Bill swelled the enrollments of American colleges and universities. In 1948, three of those veterans – William F. Scandling, Harry W. Anderson, and W. P. Laughlin – took over the operation of the Hobart dining hall. Their fledgling business was expanded the next year to include William Smith College; after their graduation, in 1949, it grew to serve other colleges and universities across the country, eventually becoming Saga Corporation, a nationwide provider of institutional food services.

1970 Coercion charges

Students and faculty of Hobart and William Smith Colleges were active during the anti-war movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s. On April 30, 1970, a group of first-year students threw three Molotov cocktails through the windows of the Air Force ROTC office located on the first floor of Sherrill Hall. The incident was incited by "Tommy the Traveler" an agent provocateur who worked for the Ontario County Police Department and the FBI. No one was injured and no significant damage was done to Sherrill Hall. In July of that year, the colleges were officially indicted on coercion charges in a landmark case in the history of higher education in the United States. The incident marks the first time in U.S. history that a college has been charged with criminal activities relating to a campus disorder. The colleges were acquitted of all charges.

2014 Title IX investigation

On May 1, 2014, the U.S. Department of Education released a list of 55 colleges being investigated for potential violations of federal law regarding sexual assault and harassment complaints. The list included Hobart and William Smith Colleges. A New York Times article published in July of the same year detailed a case in which a student reported a sexual assault by three college football players two weeks into her first year; within two weeks the college's investigation cleared the two men accused, despite medical evidence, a corroborating witness to one of the incidents and discrepancies in the alleged perpetrators' accounts of the evening. The story also alleged the members of the disciplinary panel that heard the case were uninformed about sexual assault and frequently changed the subject rather than hear the victim's account of events. Following the report, the colleges unveiled new initiatives and policies, including revising their sexual violence policies, creating a rape hotline and forming an Office of Title IX Programs and Compliance.

2025 Legacy agreement with Wells College

In June 2025, the Board of Trustees of Wells College, which had closed in 2024 due to financial troubles, entered into a legacy agreement with Hobart and William Smith. As part of that agreement, books, records and other items from Wells College would be held at Hobart and William Smith, and a greenspace would be named in honor of the former college.

Campus

Layout

Hobart and William Smith Colleges' campus is situated on 170 acres (0.69 km2) in Geneva, New York, along the shore of Seneca Lake, the largest of the Finger Lakes. The campus is notable for the style of Jacobean Gothic architecture represented by many of its buildings, notably Coxe Hall, which houses the President's Office and other administrative departments. In contrast, the earliest buildings were built in the Federal style and the chapel is Neo-Gothic.

The Quad, the core of the Hobart campus, was formed by the construction of Medbery, Coxe, and Demarest. Several years later, Arthur Nash, a Hobart professor, designed Williams Hall, which would be constructed in the gap between Medbery and Coxe. The Quad is formed to the east by Trinity and Geneva Hall, the two original College buildings, and to the south by the Science compound, and Napier Hall. Geneva Hall (1822) and Trinity Hall (1837) were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. In 2016, the schools announced they were going solar by building two solar farms to create enough electricity for about 50 percent of HWS' needs.

The Hill (or William Smith Hill) is a prominent feature of the historic William Smith campus. Located at the top of a large sloping hill to the West of Seneca Lake and the Hobart Quad, the Hill houses three historic William Smith dorms and one built in the 1960s (Comstock, Miller, Blackwell, and Hirshson Houses). At its peak resides William Smith's all-female dorms. The Hill was the site originally conceived for William Smith College. Unveiled in 2008 for the William Smith Centennial is a statue of the college's founder and benefactor, William Smith.

A fifteen-million-dollar expansion of the Scandling Campus Center was completed in the autumn of 2008. This renovation added over 17,000 additional square feet, including an expanded cafe, a new post office, and more meeting areas. In 2016 the Gearan Center for Performing Arts was completed for 28 million dollars, becoming the largest project in the history of the college.

Key buildings

Coxe Hall serves as the main administrative hub of the campus. Constructed in 1901, the building is named after Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe, a benefactor of the school, and houses the president's office, Bartlett Theater, The Pub, and a classroom wing, which was added in the 1920s. Arthur Cleveland Coxe was closely affiliated with the school. The building was designed by Clinton and Russell Architects.

Gearan Center for the Performing Arts, named in honor of President Mark D Gearan and Mary Herlihy Gearan, was in 2016. It includes a lobby that links three flexible performance and rehearsal spaces for theater, music, and dance. Also included are faculty offices, practice and recital rooms, and a film screening room.

Scandling Campus Center, named after William F. Scandling '49, renovated and expanded in 2009, houses Saga (the dining hall), the post office, offices of student activities, a cafe, and Vandervort room (a large event space).

Gulick Hall was built in 1951 as part of the post-war "mini-boom" that also included the construction of the Hobart "mini-quad" dormitories Durfee, Bartlett, and Hale (each named for a 19th-century Hobart College president). Gulick Hall originally housed the campus dining services and, later, the Office of the Registrar. Completely renovated in 1991, Gulick now houses both the Office of the Registrar and the Psychology department, which was moved from Smith Hall in 1991 before its renovation in 1992.

Stern Hall, named for the lead donor, Herbert J. Stern '58, was completed in 2004. It houses the departments of economics, political science, anthropology & sociology, environmental studies, and Asian languages and cultures.

Smith Hall, built in 1907, originally housed both the Biology and Psychology Departments. It is now home to the Dean's Offices of both colleges, along with the departmental offices of Writing and Rhetoric and the various modern language departments. Smith Hall was the first building constructed with funds from William Smith on the William Smith College campus, but it is also the first building that has always been shared by both colleges.

Dormitories

Geneva Hall, built in 1822, is the college's first building, and the cornerstone site designated by the School's founder, Bishop John Henry Hobart. The building is one of the oldest academic buildings in continuous use, having served as a dormitory, among other uses, since its completion. The building has inscribed into its quoins, and alongside the perimeter of its facade, plaques that list the graduates of classes dating back to the 19th century.

The Mini Quad, consisting of three buildings, Durfee, Hale, and Bartlett. Since the 2006 academic year, the dorms have become coeducational.

Hale Hall is named for Benjamin Hale, president of Hobart College from 1836 to 1858.

Bartlett Hall was named after the Reverend Murray Bartlett, who served as the fourteenth president of Hobart College from 1919 to 1936.

Durfee Hall was named after William Pitt Durfee, who from 1884 to 1929 served as Professor of Mathematics and Chair of the Mathematics Department. He was the first dean of a liberal arts college and served as acting president of the college four times

Blackwell House was designed and built in 1860 by Richard Upjohn as a residence for William Douglass, who served as a trustee of Hobart College. The house was purchased in 1908 as the first William Smith dormitory. The house is known for its grand Victorian features from fireplaces to chandeliers, to large old windows. Though rarely recognized as such, the house is named for Elizabeth Blackwell, an early graduate of what became the colleges.

Comstock House was designed by Richard Upjohn's grandson, Hobart Upjohn, in 1932. Comstock is a women's dormitory named for Anna Botsford Comstock, a friend of William Smith and the first woman to be named a member of the board of trustees.

Miller House was William Smith College's second dormitory. Miller was designed by Arthur Nash, professor and grandson of Arthur Cleveland Coxe. Nash also designed Smith Hall and Williams Hall. This house honors Elizabeth Smith Miller, a leader in the women's movement.

Academics

Hobart and William Smith Colleges offer the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Master of Arts in Teaching, Master of Science in Management and Master of Arts in Higher Education Leadership. HWS follows the semester calendar and has a student-to-faculty ratio of 11:1. Hobart and William Smith Colleges was accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools until 2023. It is now accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. Its most popular majors, by 2023 graduates, were: Economics (44), Psychology (34), Media Studies (32), Business Management and Entrepreneurship (29) and Environmental Science (24).

In 2025, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education named HWS to their list of “Research Colleges and Universities."

Curriculum

The curriculum was last reviewed and revised in the 2014–15 academic year. Voted on by the faculty, the curriculum adopted the animating principle: Explore. Collaborate. Act. The revisions also adopted a Writing Enriched Curriculum model, the implementation of capstone experiences across all programs and departments, and enhanced the First Year Experience. Specifically, to graduate from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, students must:

Pass 32 academic courses, including a First-Year Seminar

Complete the requirements for an academic major, including a capstone course or experience, and an academic minor (or second major). Students cannot major and minor in the same subject.

Complete a course of study, designed in consultation with a faculty adviser, which addresses each of the eight educational goals:

Critical Thinking

Communication

Quantitative Reasoning

Scientific Inquiry

Artistic Process

Social Inequalities

Cultural Difference

Ethical Judgment

First-Year Seminar

First-Year Seminars are discussion-centered, interdisciplinary and collaborative. The only required course at HWS, seminar classes are small – usually about 15 students. They are intended to help students:

Develop critical thinking and communication skills

Understand the colleges’ intellectual and ethical values

Establish a strong network of relationships with peers and mentors

Seminar topics vary each year, as do the professors who teach them. Many First-Year Seminars are linked to a learning community. Students enrolled in a learning community take one or more courses together. They also live together on the same floor of a co-ed residence hall and attend some of the same lectures and field trips.

Global education

More than 60% of Hobart and William Smith students participate in off-campus study before they graduate. The colleges offer study abroad sites on 6 continents with courses available in many academic disciplines. Admission to these programs is competitive.

In the 2020 edition of The Princeton Review's Best 385 Colleges, Hobart and William Smith Colleges' study abroad program was ranked third on the "Most Popular Study Abroad" list, marking four years in a row that HWS was a top-10 study abroad school (No. 7 in 2017 and No. 1 in the 2018 and 2019 editions).

President Joyce P. Jacobsen

On July 1, 2019, Joyce P. Jacobsen began serving as the 29th President of Hobart College and the 18th of William Smith College. She is the first woman to serve as president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She resigned as president effective July 2022, and continues to teach at the colleges.

Rankings

In 2024, The Wall Street Journal named HWS 4th in the nation for Best Student Experience.

The Princeton Review has named HWS 13th for Best Alumni Network, 14th Best for Internships, 17th for Career Services and 18th for Happiest Students.

In its 2025 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranks Hobart and William Smith Colleges as tied for 74th best liberal arts college in the U.S. and 53rd in "Best Value Schools".

Forbes ranked Hobart and William Smith Colleges 195th out of the top 500 rated private and public colleges and universities in America for the 2024–25 report. Hobart and William Smith Colleges was also ranked 45th among liberal arts colleges and 78th in the northeast.

Trias Writers-in-Residence

Founded in 2011 with a grant from alumnus Peter Trias, Hobart and William Smith Colleges established the Trias Writer-in-Residence, which brings renowned authors to campus for a year to mentor undergraduate creative writing students. Former writers in residence have included Mary Ruefle, Mary Gaitskill, Tom Piazza, Chris Abani, and John D'Agata.

Elizabeth Blackwell Award

In honor of Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910), the first woman in America to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree, the Elizabeth Blackwell Award is given by Hobart and William Smith Colleges to a woman whose life exemplifies outstanding service to humanity. Its recipients have included Chair of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen (2015); the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori (2013); Eunice Kennedy Shriver (2011); first woman ordained a rabbi in the United States, Rabbi Sally Priesand (2009); Wangari Maathai (2008), first African woman to receive the Nobel Prize; the first woman to be ordained to the episcopate in the worldwide Anglican Communion, Bishop Barbara Harris (2004); Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (2001); tennis great Billie Jean King (1998); Wilma Mankiller (1996), first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation; U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan (1993); U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (1991); former Surgeon General Antonia Novello (1991); Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (1985); Fe del Mundo, the first Asian woman admitted to Harvard Medical School (1966); Miki Sawada, who started an orphanage for abandoned mixed-race children (1960); among many others.

President's Forum

Each semester, Hobart and William Smith sponsors a series of guest lectures. The most prominent has been the President's Forum, established in 2000 and led by president Mark Gearan. The forum has included The Hon. Shireen Avis Fisher, Nancy Zimpher, Mary Matalin and James Carville, Kathy Platoni, Svante Myrick, Cornel West, Ralph Nader, Hillary Clinton, Eric Liu, and Alan Keyes, among other prominent names.

Publications

Seneca Review, founded in 1970 by James Crenner and Ira Sadoff, is published twice yearly, spring and fall, by Hobart and William Smith Colleges Press. Distributed internationally, the magazine's emphasis is poetry, and the editors have a special interest in translations of contemporary poetry from around the world. Publisher of numerous laureates and award-winning poets, including Seamus Heaney, Rita Dove, Jorie Graham, Yusef Komunyakaa, Lisel Mueller, Wislawa Szymborska, Charles Simic, W.S. Merwin, and Eavan Boland, Seneca Review also consistently publishes emerging writers. In 1997, Seneca Review began publishing the "lyric essay," creative nonfiction that borders on poetry, under the associate editorship of John D'Agata.

Echo and Pine is the annual student-produced college yearbook. Originally two separate publications, the Hobart Echo of Seneca, and the William Smith Pine, the two merged in the 1960s to create one publication to serve both colleges. The Herald is the student-run school newspaper, founded in the late 19th century as the Hobart Herald. The Pulteney St. Survey is the official magazine of Hobart and William Smith Colleges. martini is the alternative student publication at Hobart & William Smith Colleges featuring an oftentimes witty and critical look at music, politics, and social issues on both the colleges' campus and on the national level.

Thel provides an outlet for HWS student artists and writers. The bi-annual, student-run publication features poetry, photography, visual art, and short stories created by HWS students. The Aleph is a journal that expresses global perspectives by conveying the insights of HWS and Union College students who studied abroad in joint programs as well as international and exchange students from both campuses. The journal is sponsored by the Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Union College Partnership for Global Education.

Debate

The HWS Debate Team dates back over 100 years. Notable recent victories include a 17th-place finish at the Worlds Universities Debate Championship in 2024, the 2016 Cornell IV, the 2015 Brad Smith Debate Tournament @ University of Rochester, the 2012 US National Championships, and the 2012 and 2009 Northeastern Regional Championship. The team hosts the HWS IV (one of the largest tournaments in North America) each fall, and the HWS Round Robin (an international tournament of champions) each spring. Every year, an HWS debater is honored with the Nathan D. Lapham Prize in Public Speaking, which comes with a cash award of up to $1000 to the student. HWS is among the few liberal arts colleges to offer numerous four-year debate scholarships.

Music

Hobart and William Smith has several ensemble groups, including:

Colleges Chorale, a mixed ensemble that performs a wide range of a cappella choral repertoire — music from the Middle Ages to the present. In addition to a formal concert at the end of each semester and the annual spring tour, the Colleges Chorale performs at various campus events throughout the year.

Cantori is a chamber vocal ensemble comprising members from the larger Colleges Chorale. Since the group's formation in 1993, the sixteen-member Cantori has sought to foster contemporary choral music through the Cantori Commissioning Project – the annual commissioning and performance of a new work by a deserving American composer.

Classical Guitar Ensemble - a student group providing a performance opportunity for talented student guitarists.

Community Chorus - students, faculty, and staff at the colleges, and members from the surrounding community. The fifty-voice ensemble performs major works from the standard repertoire as well as lesser-known works deserving wider familiarity. Recent programs have included extended works by Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Gabriel Fauré, Ottorino Respighi, Sir Edward Elgar, Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, and Randall Thompson.

Community Wind Ensemble - students, faculty, and staff at the colleges and members from the surrounding community. This relatively new ensemble looks forward to exploring the rich and diverse repertoire composed for wind ensemble.

Jazz Ensemble - a student group providing a performance opportunity for talented student jazzers. Arrangements are found to accommodate a variety of instrumental combinations.

Jazz Guitar Ensemble - a student group providing a performance opportunity for talented student jazz guitarists.

Percussion Ensemble - a student group providing a performance opportunity for talented student percussionists, although students with minimal experience are encouraged to audition.

Athletics

Varsity sports

The Hobart and William Smith Colleges athletics teams are nicknamed the Statesmen and the Herons (men's and women's teams respectively).

There are 30 varsity sports at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, with about 43% of students involved at the varsity level. Hobart sponsors 15 varsity programs (alpine skiing, baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, swimming & diving, rowing, sailing, soccer, squash, tennis, volleyball), while William Smith also sponsors 15 varsity programs (alpine skiing, basketball, bowling, cross country, field hockey, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, rowing, sailing, soccer, squash, swimming & diving, tennis, volleyball). Hobart and William Smith varsity teams have won 26 national championships, including Hobart hockey's 3 consecutive NCAA DIII Men's Ice Hockey Championship titles in 2023, 2024 and 2025. HWS teams have also won 138 conference championships, producing 744 All-Americans, 73 Academic All-America honorees. In March 2017, Hobart and William Smith were named to the "100 Best Colleges for Sports Lovers" by Money and Sports Illustrated.

Notable faculty

Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933), campaigner for women's education and proponent of the Spiritualism movement

William Robert Brooks (1844–1922), astronomer who specialized in comet discovery and has some periodic comets named for him

Ithiel de Sola Pool, social scientist and one of the leaders of the Simulmatics Corporation

Elon Howard Eaton, founder of the biology department, state ornithologist, and author of bird books

William A. Eddy, president of Hobart College, 1942

Mark Gearan, president of colleges, former White House Deputy Communications Director for President Bill Clinton, and former Director of the Peace Corps

Andrew Harvey, professor of English and author on religion and mysticism

Susan Henking, president of Shimer College, Professor Emerita, formerly professor of religious studies, women's studies, and LGBT studies

Matthew Kadane, assistant professor of history, main songwriter (along with brother Bubba) of Bedhead and The New Year

Daniel A. McGowan, Professor Emeritus

H. Wesley Perkins, professor of sociology and author of Father of Social Norms Marketing

William Stevens Perry (1832–1898), history professor and president at Hobart College, author, and second bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa