{"id":1218,"date":"2014-09-18T18:50:54","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T22:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=1218"},"modified":"2014-09-18T18:50:54","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T22:50:54","slug":"centre-college-ranked-1-college-in-boyle-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2014\/09\/18\/centre-college-ranked-1-college-in-boyle-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Centre College Ranked #1 College in Boyle County"},"content":{"rendered":"

By GRAY WHITSETT –\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>OPINIONS SECTION EDITOR<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a little college down in Kentucky which in 60 years has graduated more men who have acquired prominence and fame than has Princeton in her 150 years.\u201d
\n\u2013 Woodrow Wilson<\/p>\n

So goes the quote that has kept the \u201clittle college down in Kentucky\u201d flaming for decades. Centre College, founded in 1819, stands as one of the oldest colleges in the state of Kentucky.<\/p>\n

Renowned for its study abroad program, affordability, and academic rigor, Centre has received numerous accolades since the beginning of arbitrary ranking systems. Now it proudly adds another status to its impressive record.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Boyle County ranking is one we\u2019ve been trying to collect since before the Spragens era,\u201d Vice President for College Relations Richard Trollinger said. \u201cTo have it now \u2026 well, it\u2019s bringing a lot of joy to a lot of people.\u201d And indeed it did, as college students, faculty, and staff celebrated via Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go to a school like Centre,\u201d senior Dennis Barrett said, \u201cyou\u2019re always looking to justify your decision to attend, and this is the perfect fodder. All I have to do is share or retweet it and just like that, my family back home has some church group talking points.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrett, as well as Trollinger and a host of others, took part in the revelry, avidly commenting and favoriting those posts that promoted Centre\u2019s newest prize. As the administration posted the rankings on literally every surface of the college\u2019s Campus Center, the faculty joined in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s why I teach here,\u201d stated Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi Professor of Eastern Religions Christian Haskett. \u201cIt makes dealing with staff meetings totally worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As overtop as it all sounds, there\u2019s something magical in the air at Centre after a new ranking is published. Whether it\u2019s the Princeton Review, Forbes, or the Advocate Messenger, the college goes nuts, and rightfully so.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work hard, plain and simple,\u201d said Dean of Student Life Randy Hays. \u201cWe support our students with exceptional opportunities, we support our faculty with word class teaching environments, and we support our community, Danville and Boyle County, through organizations like the Bonner Scholars and C.A.R.E.\u201d<\/p>\n

A mainstay at Centre for well over a decade, Dean Hays was proud to receive the honor. \u201cYou know, we\u2019ve had a lot of great memories in my time here, long before I was a dean. You\u2019ve got the US News ranking of \u201994, Kiplinger\u2019s in \u201998, both huge moments for the college. Then you\u2019ve got the Interdebate Years, during which you have more strong standings, with Forbes in \u201902 and \u201905 and Washington Monthly in \u201911. With the Boyle ranking under our belt, the sky really is the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

But with all this excitement in the air, not everyone benefited.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, we get it,\u201d pleads National College\u2019s President Frank Longaker, \u201cyou\u2019re better than us.\u201d National College is a for-profit institution with 30 campuses throughout Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, and\u00a0West Virginia, and of course Boyle County, that offers degrees in just about anything you could imagine at remarkable affordability. It\u2019s essentially the Walmart of higher education.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a position we\u2019ve held in Boyle County for a long time,\u201d continued President Longaker. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge moral boost for our team in Danville, one with which we pride ourselves. To have that yanked away by a school that outclasses us in every respect is insulting and embarrassing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining Longaker\u2019s dissent are a few from the Centre community, who wished to remain anonymous for safety concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe push these rankings so hard,\u201d said one student, \u201cbut sometimes I wonder if it\u2019s even substantive, if it really all means anything. I guess what I\u2019m saying is it feels really shallow, like we\u2019re measuring a school\u2019s worth by a metric that is both insufficient and terribly misleading. I mean, think about it \u2013 we aren\u2019t even a D1 school.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter the individual\u2019s view, it seems everyone in the barely 30,000 person county is talking about it. \u201cCentre\u2019s done so much for this community,\u201d claimed Ron Scott, City Manager of Danville, \u201cand we\u2019re happy to have them monopolizing our resources, especially during this period of decay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott wasn\u2019t without his own doubts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no idea why anyone would actually want this.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seemed only fitting, however, to hear directly from the college itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an age of unpredictability in higher education,\u201d stated Centre College President John Roush, \u201can age of increasingly larger universities, an age of unfortunate foreclosures in liberal arts, this is what Centre College is doing: excelling in quality education, personal development, and magazine rankings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: The previous article is the first of the CentOnion series, a satirical publication focused on parodying various subjects unique to Centre College\u2019s campus.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As such, all content within this article is purely fictional and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Cento or Centre College.<\/strong><\/em>
\nIn addition all quotations used in this article are purely fictional and do not necessarily reflect the views of the individuals quoted.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By GRAY WHITSETT –\u00a0OPINIONS SECTION EDITOR \u201cThere\u2019s a little college down in Kentucky which in 60 years has graduated more men who have acquired prominence and fame than has Princeton in her 150 years.\u201d \u2013 Woodrow Wilson So goes the quote that has kept the \u201clittle college down in Kentucky\u201d flaming for decades. Centre College, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,10],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-1218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-leisure","category-centonion","category-opinions","tag-centonion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}