Summer 2010
Departments
What's in a name?
SIMPSON COLL EGE.
150 years.
Wow.
So I found myself wondering . . . how does a college get named Simpson?
During my first year here, there have been several occasions when questions about history arose. I’ve learned to turn to the Simpson bible, Joe Walt’s Beneath The Whispering Maples. A little reading revealed origins that had much to do with the move o f Methodists into the heartland and the deep connection between the faith of those settlers and the Methodist commitment to education.
Here in Iowa this took shape during the 1850s at the Iowa Methodist Conference meetings, culminating with the decision to raise commitments to fund higher education. On August 1, 1860, those present at a meeting in Indianola about establishing a school pledged $1,800 to make it happen. The Western Iowa Conference of the Methodist Church decided later that month to also support this. On August 26, 1860, the officers of the Board of Trustees for the new Indianola Male and Female Seminary were elected and a fall term determined to begin.
Did you catch that? The Indianola Male and Female Seminary.
Okay, then how did we get to Simpson College?
We can thank Sam Vernon, according to Joe Walt. When Vernon returned to Indianola at the conclusion of the 1867 annual conference, he had the “one prize he had sought there.” The conference had renamed the Indianola school Simpson Centenary College. I t was still an awkward name. Ultimately, eighteen years later, it was shortened to Simpson College, a name we now treasure.
The Simpson in Simpson College was one Matthew Simpson, a Methodist Episcopal clergyman. Along with Henry Ward Beecher, Matthew Simpson was arguably the most well-known clergyman in the mid-1800s. It was a time when America celebrated its preachers.
In 1852, at the age of 40, Matthew Simpson was elected bishop at the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Bishop Simpson was known by and socialized with officials in the highest levels of the U.S. government. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his wife attended a wedding of one of his daughters. Bishop Simpson was the official orator at President Lincoln’s funeral in Springfield, Ill. Simpson, along with much of the Methodist leadership, strongly believed in education and the founding of schools. Sam Vernon had latched onto this for the school in Indianola.
So what truly is in a name? Matthew Simpson only visited the college that bears his name once, in 1882, for the college’s Commencement. Since then, Simpson has come to describe an experience that yields well-rounded, responsible, global citizens. I imagine he would be pleased.