Hello world!

If all goes as planned I will be using this blog as a tool to track my progress during Summer Fellows and my honors project. For the next few weeks I will be documenting in this blog the things that I find in the Ursinusiana Archives, located on the second floor of the Myrin Library here at Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA. Below, please find a brief description of my Summer Fellows research project, as presented this morning to a few of my "fellow Fellows" and their faculty mentors:

" Although Ursinus College is a fairly young institution, there have been many modifications that have occurred throughout its history. While we as students might be tempted to fixate on the changes that we find most relatable such as the price of an Ursinus education (it was $188 a year in 1885) or the clubs and organizations in which one could choose to be involved (in the 1880s the only options were the Zwinglian, Schaff, Ebrard, and Olevian literary societies which flourished here), the overall character of the College was most heavily influenced by the presence and eventual absence of religion.
Despite always being a non-sectarian college, Ursinus was founded in the wake of a religious upheaval in the German Reform Church which, at the time of its founding, had a particular theological character. The College is said to have been founded "in prayer and in debt," and only recently has it become the wholly secular institution that we know today. This summer I plan to explore the Ursinusiana archives in the library as a precursor to an honors paper in which I will address some of the implications of the College’s shift.
My foci for the summer will primarily concern the religious character of the College in its early years and the eventual abolition of compulsory chapel in the late 1960s. So far I have read most of the College Bulletins from the first 20 years of the College’s existence (several of which have included editorials about the place of religion in higher education) as well as a few sermons by Reverend Bomberger. I will continue to utilize College publications as well as other materials, such as faculty minutes and private letters that are contained within the archives. In addition to what I find in the archives I intend to interview people affiliated with the College who can fill in any gaps that I might come across in the archive materials and provide me with personal insight about the changes.
Other areas I am interested in that I will look into if time permits include the changes in the curriculum and the attitude of the College towards the concept of a liberal arts education, the shift in administration and their policies, the function of the Bomberger chapel, the role of religion in student life, and, if possible, the dramatic change in what career paths Ursinus graduates choose to take (clergy to graduate school)."