Extension Services Records

Berea College's Extension Services provided short-term, informal educational programming and services, primarily in adult education, both on and off campus, to persons living in communities around Berea (including the mountain regions as far away as West Virginia). Programming included Opportunity Schools (held both on campus and in other communities), lectures, and the publication of pamphlets, bulletins and leaflets on a variety of topics. Information regarding the Berea Opportunity School: With its first three-week session occurring in 1924, the Berea Opportunity School, part of the college's Extension Services, was a special adult session held on campus in January of each year. Based on the principles of the Danish Folk high schools, the course included twenty-five days of cultural study with lectures in literature, science, history, civil government, Bible studies, and agriculture, home and community problems. Practical instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic was also included in the curriculum. Excursions, fellowship, and recreation, including daily gymnastics based on the Danish Niels Bukh model, were part of the school. The school was designed for literate adults hungry to learn. Enrollment in first years of the school ranged up from nineteen to forty-four pupils ages eighteen to eighty. Helen H. Dingman served as the original Director of the Opportunity School (from 1924 through 1945) and Marshall E. Vaughn was its first Secretary. Other individuals who would work in the administration of the school include: Katharine C. Griggs, Marie Marvel, and Mary P. Dupay. The 1929 session of the school appears to have been canceled due to the influenza epidemic. The Opportunity School rounded out its twenty-fifth year, and history, in 1950.