The college was founded in 1867 as
Western Maryland College, and was named for the
Western Maryland Railroad because the college's first Board chairman, John Smith of Wakefield, was also the president of the railroad. (Neither the railroad nor the Methodist Protestant Church contributed funds to facilitate the establishment of the college. Some contributions, however, were received from Methodist Protestant laymen, including John Smith.) It had a voluntary fraternal affiliation with the
Methodist Protestant (later United Methodist) Church from 1868 until 1974; the adjacent but separate institution, the
Westminster Theological Seminary, was a principal site for training Methodist Protestant (later United Methodist) clergy in the Maryland region. The ties with the United Methodist Church were cut over a court case in which Western Maryland and other religiously affiliated schools in Maryland were being challenged over state funding received by the colleges because of their religious ties. The other schools retained their affiliations and won the case. The college's first building went up in 1866–1867, with an inaugural class of 37 men and women in September 1867. Western Maryland was the first coeducational institution south of the Mason–Dixon line and was among the first in the nation. The school's original charter read that the school would exist: For the benefit of students without regard to race, religion, color, sex, national or ethnic origin ... without requiring or enforcing any sectarian, racial or civil test, and without discrimination on the basis of sex, national or ethnic origin, nor shall any prejudice be made in the choice of any officer, teacher, or other employee in the said college on account of these factors. However, Western Maryland College was primarily a school without minority race representation until the 1960s.
Baker Memorial Chapel was dedicated April 20, 1958. The chapel, was built in memory of W.G. Baker, Joseph D. Baker, Daniel Baker, and Sarah Baker. The organ in the new chapel has been given by two alumni, father and son, Roger J. Whiteford, a prominent Washington attorney and graduate in 1906, and his son
Joseph S. Whiteford a graduate in 1943, president of the
Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Boston, Mass. The chapel was designed by architects Otto Eugene Adams and E.G. Riggs, of Baltimore. The Chapel steeple, 113 feet tall, is visible for miles around and was originally topped by a stainless steel cross in height. The wood panels of the chancel have been designed to complement the antique organ console which was originally in the
Bruton Parish Church, at
Williamsburg,
Virginia. The organ, with its 2,310 pipes, is held to be the largest in the area. The Whitefords also gave the
carillon installed in the steeple. In 1975 the college agreed to permanently remove religious symbols atop campus chapels and to introduce strict quotas on Methodist representation on the college board and among the faculty as a result of a settlement with the
American Civil Liberties Union and
Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Up until the 1980s, there was a specially constructed
bunker in the basement of Lewis Hall, the science building, that would have housed the
Wartime Information Security Program, a
Cold War-era group that would have been responsible for
censorship in the aftermath of a nuclear war.
McDaniel College Budapest (formerly known as Western Maryland College Budapest), the European campus of McDaniel College was established in collaboration with
College International Budapest in 1994. McDaniel College was also home to the summer training camp of the
Baltimore Colts and later
Baltimore Ravens NFL team until the 2011 Season when the team relocated training camp to their Owings Mills facility. Newer buildings on campus include the Science Hall, gymnasium, library, and student union center. On January 11, 2002, the trustees announced their unanimous decision to change the name of the college. On July 1, 2002, WMC officially became
McDaniel College, honoring alumnus
William Roberts McDaniel and his 65-year association with the school. The naming process during the spring of 2002 included input from students, faculty and alumni about possible names. Since Roger Casey, former McDaniel President, took office in 2010,
U.S. News & World Report ranking of the College decreased from 122 in 2010 to 134 in 2018. Over the same period, the enrollment decreased by 17%. In 2019
U.S. News & World Report removed McDaniel from the list of National Liberal Art Colleges. In May 2016,
Fitch Ratings revised its outlook for McDaniel from Stable to Negative. In June 2016 adjunct faculty at McDaniel voted to unionize. McDaniel is the second four-year university in the state with collective bargaining for the part-time employees. Adjuncts are represented by
Service Employees International Union Local 500. In 2017 Forbes assigned McDaniel financial grade C+. In February 2019, the Board of Trustees at the College approved the suspension of enrollment for future students in the majors of Art History, Religious Studies, French, German, and Music. Courses in all of these programs, except for German, will still be offered. In a letter to students and faculty, McDaniel officials wrote that the number of students currently enrolled in the affected programs makes up fewer than 3 percent of the student body. As of 2019, the future of faculty in the affected programs is unclear. An online petition against the decision, "Open Letter in Support of Faculty in Art History, Religious Studies, French, German, Music, Latin, and Deaf Education at McDaniel College" collected more than 650 signatures.
Presidents ==Athletics==