by Martin Firestein, Adjunct Faculty Archivist, William Rainey Harper College

William Rainey Harper was a revolutionary agent of change in American higher education. He was born to Samuel Harper and Ellen Rainey on July 24, 1856. His birth home, a five room log cabin located in New Concord, Ohio, remains intact in its original location and is owned and operated by Muskingum College. During his childhood, Harper supported his father's business by purchasing and selling wool and by helping dam a local stream to produce and sell ice. He also developed a fondness for books and learning at a very young age, and his parents, taking notice, decided to foster his inclinations to study by teaching him at home. Consequently, he was far ahead of other children his age, and he rapidly advanced from prep school, to college freshman, to earning a doctorate degree from Yale by his 19th birthday. One of his scholarly interests as a student was studying foreign languages, especially Hebrew. In fact, by the time of his death in 1906, Harper was counted among the foremost scholars of Hebrew in the United States.

After a brief hiatus to marry Ella Paul, daughter of the president of Muskingum College, in 1876, Harper took up teaching positions in Macon, Tennessee and then Denison University in Granville, Ohio. His talents got the attention of the Morgan Park Academy located in the city of Chicago, and he began teaching Hebrew there in 1879. Harper expanded the educational services offered by Morgan Park, first by enacting summer school classes, and then by creating correspondence courses, in which students would correspond by mail, with the professor in lieu of attending classes in person. This would benefit those who lacked the time or money to journey out to the campus to attend classes.

Harper's innovations got the attention of Yale University, and they eventually secured his employment in 1886. During this time, he also became president of the nearby Chautauqua institution. While in New York, he became a close associate of John D. Rockefeller, the owner of the Standard Oil Company. Rockefeller convinced Harper to lead an educational institution in the Midwest, one that could rival Yale and other eastern universities.

With Rockefeller's funding, Harper created the University of Chicago, which opened its doors in 1892. As the University's first president, Harper attempted to attract world class educators to the school, and continued to secure funds from Rockefeller. He managed to build the faculty to a total of 120 members and the school into a 10 building campus in just over a year and a half.

One of Harper's greatest accomplishments was the establishment of the junior college movement in the United States. He reasoned that the first two years of college were so similar to what came before them in high school, that students would benefit more from attending educational institutions specifically geared towards familiarizing them with the ways in which academic universities operate. In this way, they would be better prepared to handle the rigors of higher education than if they attended a university straight out of high school. While some educators argued that this division of junior colleges from research universities provided ordinary people with access to some degree of higher education (which would otherwise not have been available to them), others have come to believe that Harper's vision was elitist in that it attempted to limit the University's functions to those of research and advanced professional training, rather than democratizing access to higher education. Either way, Harper's idea of a junior college resulted in the founding of Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Illinois and several junior colleges across the country, including William Rainey Harper College in Palatine, Illinois, which opened its doors to students in 1967.

Harper College has continued Dr. Harper's dream of expanded access to higher education for all citizens. The college offers courses for students interested in obtaining degrees, continuing their education, or pursuing side interests and hobbies, and it offers classes during the day, nights, and weekends for traditional and non-traditional students alike. In addition, both traditional classroom courses and distance learning courses delivered in online, blended, and teleweb formats.