BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ST. MARTIN, Ohio -- Chatfield College exists for people like Bonnie Jesus.
The 41-year-old Fayetteville woman could not and would not go to school, she says, if not for the nurturing ways of the two-year Catholic liberal arts college in northern Brown County.
Even after six years in the U.S. Marine Corps -- including 13 months in Japan -- and a decade in the work world, Mrs. Jesus was intimidated by the thought of college. She overcame her nerves to start college a year ago.
"Now that I'm here, I don't understand why I didn't start sooner," Mrs. Jesus says. She will graduate in May with an associate degree in liberal arts and, more important, the confidence to pursue a bachelor of arts degree in communications.
Chatfield is unique among Tristate colleges, says Barbara Stonewater, executive director of the Greater Cincinnati Consortium of Colleges and Universities.
It's the only one of the consortium's 14 member schools that reaches out, by design, to students who otherwise might not be able to attend college because of social or financial reasons. Chatfield also offers a third-year option that, as a consortium member, allows students to transfer up to 90 credit hours toward a bachelor's degree at any of the organization's four-year schools.
"It does some things better than anyone else," Ms. Stonewater says. "Chatfield could teach all of us some things about how to accommodate, support and challenge students from outside of the perceived college mainstream."
|
AT A GLANCE
|
What: Chatfield College, a 200-acre rural campus in St. Martin, Brown County, Ohio. 875-3344.
Enrollment: 400, 175 full-time students.
Average student age: 31.
Founded: 1971, by the Ursulines of Brown County.
Mission: To make higher education possible for people who otherwise would not attend college.
President: Sister Margaret Anne Dougherty, Institute of Sisters of Mercy. She will be inaugurated as the college's third president at 2 p.m. Sunday at Sacred Heart Chapel on the college's St. Martin campus. Mass will be held 2 p.m. Saturday at St. Leo the Great, North Fairmount.
Branch campus: Chatfield Cincinnati Branch, North Fairmount Community Center, 2569 St. Leo Place; 921-9856.
Programs: Associate of arts degrees available with concentrations in art, business, child development, human services and liberal arts.
Accreditation: North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.
Cost per credit hour: $165.
Student-to-faculty ratio: 12-1.
Features: Two-year school. No full-time faculty. No athletic programs. No dormitories.
Alumni: 60 percent of each graduation classes goes on to complete a bachelor's degree at a four-year institution.
|
Two-thirds of Chatfield's students are women, and most of them are Appalachians from families and communities in which higher education was rarely a possibility.
"They don't have high visibility because they're so small and it's in their nature to be so quiet," Ms. Stonewater says. "Chatfield is one of Greater Cincinnati's best-kept secrets."
The 27-year-old college is beginning to make some marketing noise under the leadership of its new chief executive.
This weekend, Chatfield inaugurates its third president in its 27-year history. Sister Margaret Anne Dougherty, a member of the Institute of Sisters of Mercy from Philadelphia, replaces Sister Ellen Doyle. Under Sister Doyle, a member of the Order of Saint Ursula who led Chatfield for 11 years, the school's enrollment doubled, its annual fund tripled and its endowment increased ten-fold.
Sister Margaret Anne pledges to pick up where her predecessor left off. She and a handful of other new administrators plan a capital campaign to build a student center, complete with a bookstore, student lounge and faculty offices. They anticipate enrollment will increase to 600, up from the current 400, in the next five years.
Chatfield also plans to develop nursing and home health care programs in conjunction with Mercy Hospital Anderson. The program would be similar to some of the acclaimed co-op opportunities available through Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.
"We're at a point in our history to put infrastructure in place that builds on what's here," says Sister Margaret Anne, 50, vice president of student services at Gwynedd-Mercy in suburban Philadelphia before becoming Chatfield's CEO in 1997.
What won't change is the Chatfield tradition. "I value the personal touch," she says. "I value the respect that faculty and staff have for these students." No-frills education
Chatfield students don't expect campus luxuries. They don't have time for them.
Students demand quality instruction, say the teachers, , who are all part-time. The student-faculty ratio is 12-1. Most classes are taught seminar-style, with students and instructor sharing a single large table.
Classes are held once a week, some in the evening, which allows students -- many of whom have families -- to arrange child care. School-aged children have attended class with their mothers more than once. Sister Margaret Anne would like to add a child-care service.
There are no dormitories, athletic programs or food service, so tuition costs are held down. Chatfield costs $3,900 for 24 credit hours.
|
27 years of Chatfield College
|
|
Chatfield College was established in 1971 by the Ursulines of Brown County, but the history of the campus dates to 1845.
Eleven Ursuline nuns -- new arrivals from France -- had crossed the Atlantic Ocean to help the new Midwestern cities in their schools. An order founded in 1535 by St. Angela Merici, the Ursulines were known for their educational skills.
John Baptist Purcell, Cincinnati's first archbishop, sent the Ursulines to St. Martin in northern Brown County, where they started a boarding school for girls and a day school for girls and boys. The site had formerly housed a seminary.
Though the boarding school closed in 1891, the Ursulines later established a high school and Chatfield College -- named after the early congregation's leader, Sister Julia Chatfield.
What is now the college's main classroom building was erected in 1867. It includes a first-floor gymnasium and small second-floor classrooms that were previously used as offices for the Ursuline sisters and later as recital rooms for the female borders, for whom piano lessons were mandatory.
The campus is known for its large and varied trees. Archbishop Purcell and Sister Chatfield are buried on the grounds.
|
Cincinnati State, a public vocational school, costs $3,200 a year for 24 credit hours. But Chatfield is less expensive and more convenient for students living in Brown, Adams and Highland counties than the Tristate's other private liberal arts schools such as Xavier University ($14,400) and the College of Mount St. Joseph ($12,500).
Eighty-one percent of Chatfield's 1997 graduating class received need-based financial aid.
The average age of a Chatfield student is 31, and it continues to drop. Increasing numbers of traditional college students -- those who start college immediately after graduating from high school -- are choosing Chatfield.
One is Jennifer Ritchie, 19, of Hillsboro. She's a 1997 graduate of Middletown Christian and attended Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo., before transferring.
"I like the personable environment, and the (students) who are here are serious about their work," says Ms. Ritchie, who's studying human services and plans to pursue her bachelor's degree in social work from Wilmington College.
Good neighbor
While Chatfield remains relatively unknown throughout much of the Tristate, it's an important member of the rural community in Clermont, Brown, Highland and Adams counties, which comprise southern Ohio's gateway to the Appalachian region.
"Just by being here, Chatfield has given people in this area the opportunity to better their chances for future employment or better employment, or for life enrichment," says U.S. Rep. Rose Vesper, R-New Richmond, whose 72nd District includes Brown County. "Its graduates develop skills to serve the community." Alan Simmons is principal of Fayetteville High School and a former political science instructor at Chatfield.
"I've hired two of my former Chatfield students as teachers," Mr. Simmons says. "Many young ladies from displaced homes have found direction and opportunity at Chatfield.
"It does filter down into our (high) school and the community. It benefits other people in the students' families."
Cases in point are Bonnie Jesus and her son, Jimmy, 14.
Mrs. Jesus, a former line supervisor in an auto parts factory, now wants to work in advertising or the media.
"I love to write," she says.
Jimmy, a freshman at Fayetteville High School, never saw himself as college material until he saw his mother attend Chatfield.
"My attitude has changed," Jimmy says. "I thought I'd just get a job. After seeing how excited my mom is, I plan to go. I'm going to study art."
