Founding Members of the
Free Will Baptist Church founded their denomination's first collegiate institution, Michigan Central College in
Spring Arbor, Michigan, The state of Michigan incorporated the college the following year, during which the college enrolled 25 undergraduates. Its first president was
Daniel McBride Graham, who held the office from 1844 to 1848.
Edmund Burke Fairfield assumed the school's presidency in 1848, and in 1850, the college was chartered to confer degrees. and the college became the second school in the nation to grant four-year liberal arts
degrees to women. In 1854, he attended the
first convention of the new
Republican Party with
Ransom Dunn in neighboring
Jackson, Michigan. Fairfield served in the Michigan Senate from 1857 to 1859, and was elected that year as
Lieutenant Governor of Michigan. Hillsdale's early anti-slavery stance and its pivotal role in founding the Republican Party led to the invitation of several notable speakers on the campus, including
Frederick Douglass (who visited the school on two occasions) and
Edward Everett, the orator who preceded
Abraham Lincoln at
Gettysburg. In 1869,
James Calder succeeded Fairfield as president. Calder served through 1871. During his administration, the commercial school opened, a theological department was established, and the college enrolled around 750 students. One of the women's dormitories is named after Mauck. In 1907, the college amended its Articles of Association, no longer requiring the president and trustees to be
Free Will Baptists. This led to a decline in the theological department's prestige but an increase in the number of Christian denominations represented on campus. Under Spencer, Hillsdale acquired its Slayton Arboretum, built new dormitories, constructed a new field house for its developing athletic programs, and, in 1924, chartered its chapter of
Chi Omega. In these years, Hillsdale began to resist federal civil rights regulations, particularly
Title IV of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, concerning
affirmative action. In 1962, the college's trustees adopted its own "Declaration of Independence". It affirmed Hillsdale's stance against what it called governmental control.
George Roche III became the 11th president of Hillsdale College in 1971. During the Roche years, Hillsdale became nationally known, in part because of its withdrawal from federal and state-assisted loan programs and grants. Colleges that receive federal funding are required by law to report data on racial integration as part of the US affirmative action student loan program. Hillsdale announced that it refused to do so, and the college's trustees instead stated that the institution would follow its own non-discrimination policy and "with the help of God, resist, by all legal means, any encroachments on its independence." 19-year sexual affair. Married to Roche's son, Hillsdale Professor of History George Roche IV, Jackson Roche had been employed as managing editor of Hillsdale College Press for 14 years. President Roche denied the alleged affair, but was suspended by the College on November 1 and resigned his post on November 10th. Due to Jackson Roche's suicide and the ensuing scandal, the college's reputation suffered.
21st century Larry P. Arnn has served as president of the college since 2000. Hillsdale's K–12 Initiative developed a full liberal arts K–12 curriculum for use in the charter schools and its private school in Michigan, Hillsdale Academy. In 2021, Hillsdale K–12 released a Civics "1776 Curriculum." In 2022, Hillsdale had schools following its K–12 liberal arts curriculum across 19 states and Barney Charter Schools in 9 states. After several decades of maintaining a semester program in
Washington D.C., Hillsdale established a permanent presence with the establishment of the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship on Massachusetts Avenue. The facility was dedicated on Constitution Day 2010.
Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas, ran the Washington center's speaker series at this time. In 2015, the Boyle Radio Studio at the Kirby Center was dedicated. on campus In 2012, Hillsdale founded the Van Andel Graduate School for Statesmanship on its Michigan campus offering both an M.A. and PhD in Politics. Its first M.A. students graduated in 2014, and its first PhD students graduated in 2018. In 2020, Hillsdale founded the Van Andel Graduate School of Government on its DC campus offering an M.A. in government. In 2022, Hillsdale founded its Graduate School of Classical Education offering an M.A. in Classical Education. In 2013, Arnn was criticized for remarks about ethnic minorities he made while testifying before the Michigan legislature, against the
Common Core curriculum standards. Expressing concern about government interference with educational institutions, he noted having received a letter from the state Department of Education early in his presidency that said his college "violated the standards for diversity." He added, "because we didn't have enough dark ones, I guess, is what they meant." After being criticized for calling minorities "dark ones," Arnn explained that he was referring to "dark faces". He stated: "The State of Michigan sent a group of people down to my campus, with clipboards ... to look at the colors of people's faces and write down what they saw. We don't keep records of that information. What were they looking for besides dark ones?" Michigan House Democratic Leader
Tim Greimel condemned Arnn's comments, calling them "offensive", "inflammatory and bigoted", and asked for an apology. In response, the college issued a statement apologizing for Arnn's remark, while reiterating his concern about "state-endorsed racism", as Arnn called affirmative action. In 2019,
S. Prestley Blake donated his former home, an exact replica of Thomas Jefferson's
Monticello, in
Somers, Connecticut to Hillsdale College. In May 2021, Hillsdale dedicated the property as the Blake Center for Faith and Freedom. In November 2021, Hillsdale purchased land in
Placer County, California for nearly $6M with plans for a new educational center. The college is at the center of a national political and cultural debate about K–12 curriculum, since it regards "history as politics by other means". Hillsdale College is a member of the advisory board of
Project 2025, a collection of
conservative and
right-wing policy proposals from
The Heritage Foundation to reshape the
United States federal government and consolidate
executive power, since Trump won the
2024 presidential election. Game show host
Pat Sajak has served as the chairman of the board of trustees since April, 2019. ==Academics==