For most of Wesleyan College’s first hundred years, Pierce Chapel was the center of campus life, with students starting and ending their days with services there.
Even for decades after the women’s college moved from downtown to a new campus in north Macon in 1928, the chapel -- named for Wesleyan’s first president, George Foster Pierce -- continued to play a key role. It hosted baccalaureate and commencement services, and was an exhibition hall for art displays.
By the time the college ended its dual campus operation and merged at its Rivoli Drive site in 1953, the chapel sat unused. Ten years later, it was lost in a fire that destroyed the College Street campus.
Wesleyan has never had a chapel at its current campus, making it the only Methodist-affiliated college in the state without one. But as it celebrates its 175th anniversary, efforts are well under way to change that.
The college plans to build a new Pierce Chapel, at a cost between $5 million and $6 million. During the last several months alone, the school already has raised $4 million in gifts and pledges, and hopes for another $1 million before breaking ground in December near the official anniversary of its founding.
The chapel will give the college a worship center, a much-needed performance venue and a home for its chaplain and thriving student ministry organizations. The project, however, is as symbolic as it is practical, as the school continues recent efforts to reaffirm and strengthen its Methodist roots.
“It’s an important part of keeping our ties strong with the church,” said Susan Welsh, Wesleyan’s vice president of institutional advancement.
“Our student ministry programs are growing really fast, and so we just made a commitment to strengthen our programming, build a chapel and strengthen our scholarship programs for service leadership.”
Chartered in 1836 by community leaders and the Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the college is the world’s oldest for women. The new chapel, Welsh said, is symbolic of “our history and our future.”
The chapel is a bridge of sorts, arcing a history traced to the early days of Georgia Methodism to a future embodied in Wesleyan Disciples, a relatively new student group aimed at equipping a fresh generation of servant leaders. In the last three years, six members of the group have moved onto seminary -- including a pair of Baptists. Another two returning students also have declared.
“It’s a continuation of our mission,” said Welsh. “Leaders in the Methodist church were instrumental in the founding of Wesleyan.”
‘Timeless architecture’
The 13,000-square-foot chapel will be built on the south end of the campus, backed up to Foster Lake, between James and Hightower halls. Stakes with red and yellow flags dot the grassy area of the site, marking underground lines and spots where soil was sampled for testing.
The sanctuary will feature 250 seats on the floor and another 50 in the balcony. Its barrel, vaulted ceilings will be flanked by large, clear windows on all four sides of the space.
The new house of worship will give the college’s choir and its elite singing group, The Wesleyannes, a place to rehearse and perform.
“That’s a venue site we’re currently lacking,” said Welsh.
The slope of the terrain will provide a bottom floor to accommodate a 1,400-square-foot fellowship hall with a kitchen, bridal area and a picturesque lakeside terrace, along with the chaplain’s office.
School officials hope to raise $1 million above construction costs to fund maintenance.
Project architect Les Cole of Cole & Cole in Montgomery, Ala., said the “architectural language” of the campus was studied to design a building with a classic appearance, as if it “always existed in this setting.”
“We felt the architecture of Pierce Chapel should be timeless, yet it should have a modern sensibility with open, light-filled spaces that incorporate state-of-the-art equipment,” he said.
The Rev. Bill Hurdle, a retired Methodist minister who has served as the school’s chaplain for the past 13 years, said he’s excited about the opportunities the new chapel will bring the more than half-dozen student-ministry groups.
Weekly chapel services currently are held Sunday nights, usually in the Benson Room.
“The reason we don’t have chapel on Sunday mornings is we encourage students to get involved with local churches,” he explained.
The lower-level meeting room will be named for the Wesleyan Disciples, a program started about six years ago to foster the college’s focus on servant leadership. The program is running at capacity of about 30 students, and its members lead the weekly chapel services.
“It’s our fastest-growing program,” said Welsh. “It’s interdenominational, international. It draws a diverse mix of students, and they focus on common ground. It’s very progressive and has resonated at a very high level with our students.
“Not having a chapel does not stop these girls. They have service out here by the fountain, in the classroom. Their faith cannot be contained. It’s so exciting to see them invigorate the entire campus.”
Foundation and future of faith
The program carries scholarships and requires members to commit to four areas: a healthy lifestyle, leadership, academic pursuit of the Bible and community service off campus.
“They do a lot of service on campus and off campus,” said Welsh. “There’s a leadership component to the Wesleyan Disciples that we think is very effective in preparing the students for leadership in their professions, their churches, their communities, whatever, across the board.”
Still, Hurdle has found the number of members choosing ministry as a profession somewhat surprising.
“We planned for it to be a program that would help them grow in their spiritual life and help them learn a little bit, about other Christians and express their differences with each other, especially in Bible study,” he said, “and yet respect each other and accept each other as Christians, even though they have differences of opinion on various things related to the Bible or about everyday faith.”
Wesleyan’s 700-plus student body is among the nation’s most diverse, with one of, if not the highest, percentage of international students enrolled. That diversity is represented in the Wesleyan Disciples. Hurdle said the past academic year’s roster included two international students, along with white, black and Hispanic students representing seven or eight different denominations
He’s noticed, however, an enthusiasm not limited to the Disciples.
Non-members have spoken, sang and led music at chapel services. Group and non-group members also have taken the encouragement to get involved in local churches to heart.
“We do have a lot of our students who are very involved,” he said. They do Sunday school work or youth work or music work or whatever at local churches. That part of it has worked out really well.”
The Disciples group has generated much interest from trustees and alumnae, Hurdle said, pointing to the plans to name the chapel meeting room -- which will be available to other student ministries and groups -- after the program.
“The president, Ruth Knox, plans for the Wesleyan Disciples to be a continuing strong emphasis at Wesleyan. They’ve been able to get grants for that program.”
The school’s focus on encouraging “service leadership as a philosophy” has earned it the highest honor for service programming -- the President’s Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, Welsh said.
“The way we are tying service learning in with faith resonates with today’s students.”
The school, however, is not forgetting what Welsh called its “foundation of faith,” specifically its Methodist ties.
New scholarships have been added for Methodist students. The South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church plans to moves its offices onto the campus. And there’s the annual tradition of beginning baccalaureate services at the historic marker at the former downtown campus before students, faculty and staff march to Mulberry Street Methodist Church, where alumnae held their first organizational meeting in 1859.
To contact writer Rodney Manley, call 744-4623.
