Monmouth College is a private Christian liberal arts college in Monmouth, Illinois, United States. Affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, it enrolls 767 students in Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degree programs including a four-year nursing program and four-year electrical engineering and mechanical engineering programs, which became ABET-accredited in 2025.
History
Monmouth College was founded on April 18, 1853, by the Second Presbytery of Illinois of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Founded as Monmouth Academy, the school became Monmouth College after receiving a charter from the state legislature on September 3, 1856. The college remains affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, a consortium of small, private liberal arts colleges. The college's motto "Lux" ("Light") appears on its seal.
The first president, David A. Wallace, built two mission churches in Massachusetts before assuming the Monmouth presidency.
Founded on the eve of the American Civil War, the college immediately faced a crisis. The college's campus was still under construction while virtually the entire male student body left for military service. Two hundred and thirty-two students, faculty members, and trustees served in the Civil War. A quarter of them were wounded and one in eight was killed. Two were awarded the Medal of Honor, and Abner C. Harding, a college trustee who raised a regiment composed largely of Monmouth College students, was commissioned a brigadier general for his leadership in the defense of Fort Donelson in 1863. President Wallace, believing that the college "must educate, whether there be peace or war", kept classes in session for what was then a primarily female student body.
Monmouth was founded as a coeducational college where women and men had equal access to courses. When veterans returning to the college decided to form fraternities, a group of women was determined not to be outdone, and in 1867 established the first fraternity for women, known today as Pi Beta Phi. Three years later, another well-known women's fraternity, Kappa Kappa Gamma, was founded at Monmouth.
Monmouth College had gained national stature by 1911 as shown by its US government classification where 59 colleges and universities ranked higher and 244 ranked lower (out of a total of 345 top colleges).
World War II posed a crisis to the institution similar to that of the Civil War, as male students began enlisting in the service within a month of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and soon only a handful remained on campus. Through an arrangement with the U.S. Navy Department, the college survived by becoming a U.S. Naval Flight Preparatory School, and later offered a V-5 Navy Academic Refresher Unit program for officers. Courses were taught by Monmouth's liberal arts faculty. The Navy later adopted portions of Monmouth's curriculum for training programs nationwide. More than 2,000 Navy men went through Monmouth College, a number of whom would re-enroll at the college after the war funded by the G.I. Bill.
Monmouth's chemistry department gained national prominence in the 1950s when longtime professor William S. Haldeman was recognized with a major award by the American Chemical Society. The Steelman Report on Manpower for Research noted that Monmouth and four other small colleges—Hope, Juniata, St. Olaf and Oberlin—together had "produced more candidates for the doctor's degree in chemistry than Johns Hopkins, Fordham, Columbia, Tulane and Syracuse Universities combined."
Beginning in the 1960s, a secularization movement changed the nature of the college. Concurrent with dwindling financial support from the United Presbyterian Church, the college removed the Church Synod's role in nominating and confirming trustees, thus allowing for the cultivation of new trustees with stronger business acumen and financial resources than those during the college's earlier days. The college otherwise maintained its covenant relationship with the Presbyterian Church.
During the Vietnam War, the military draft (and the ability to avoid the draft by enrolling in college) contributed to increases in college attendance throughout the U.S. Attendance at the college increased but then fell when the draft ended in the 1970s causing financial strain not unlike the losing of students to the Civil War had done in the then distant past.
In 1983, a donation from an alumnus committed $5 million to the endowment and launched a $15 million capital campaign, the largest gift in college history to that point.Meyer, Daniel. (2002) A Thousand Hearts’ Devotion: A History of Monmouth College, Monmouth College. pp. 122–147.
During the 1990s, enrollment began a steady increase that would see it more than double over the next two decades, from less than 600 in 1993 to 1,379 in 2009 and then decrease to 753 by 2021. The endowment grew from $23.6 million in 1993 to $87.2 million in 2013 to over $115 million in 2020; $75 million higher than the average for similar colleges. In 2021, the endowment stood at $146 million; $93.6 million more than average Baccalaureate colleges at the time. As of June 30, 2025, the endowment stood at $145.4 million.
Between 2002 and 2013, more than $120 million was invested in new construction and renovations to the campus.
Affiliations Monmouth is a founding member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and a member of the Annapolis Group of independent liberal arts colleges. Monmouth also continues its relationship with the Presbyterian Church (USA), although courses in religion are no longer required, and is a member of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities, of which a Monmouth College president served as chair in 2011–2012. Chemistry at Monmouth is an approved baccalaureate program by the American Chemical Society. Electrical engineering and mechanical engineering are accredited by ABET. The four-year nursing program is approved and conducted in cooperation with Saint Francis Medical Center College of Nursing.
Academics and resources The ratio of full-time students to full-time instructional faculty is 10:1. 88% of classes have fewer than 20 students.
Monmouth College offers 40 major fields of study and 17 pre-professional fields of study (with 851 different courses offered) in the sciences, arts, humanities, mathematics, computer sciences, social sciences, foreign languages, classics, and interdisciplinary fields including premedical and pre-engineering studies, and provides an integrated core curriculum. This curriculum includes four signature courses designed to aid students in making connections across disciplines and understanding their education as an integrated whole. The curriculum allows freshman students to take advanced classes, and senior students to take introductory courses. The 4-year graduation rate in 2025 was 65%.
For freshmen, the only course requirement is one of the first-year seminar courses which are limited to 16 to 18 students and shares a common focus on critical analysis and development of written and oral argument. The other 31 courses (usually four are taken per semester) required for graduation can be elected by the student.
The most popular majors are: Business Administration, Exercise Science and Kinesiology, Psychology, and Education. Within five years of graduation, more than 60 percent of Monmouth College alumni attend graduate school or another form of ongoing education.
A survey taken six months after the class of 2023 had graduated showed that 98% of Monmouth graduates were employed (or were in graduate school). As of 2026, the median salary of all graduates six years after graduation was $43,158 and the most popular major, Business Administration, earning $59,469 average.
Admission Admissions to Monmouth are classified as "selective". For the Class of 2017 (enrolled fall 2013), Monmouth received 2972 applications and accepted 1914 (64.4%). In 2022, the acceptance rate was 66%.
In 2025, 46% of students were female and 54% were male. Students come from 28 states and 21 countries. 27% were students of color and 1% were international students.
Associated Colleges of the Midwest consortium Monmouth is a founding member of the fourteen-member Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) consortium. The colleges share resources and develop and operate common off-campus academic programs. The members of the ACM include colleges in the middle west region of the United States and include Carleton College and Grinnell College among others.
Study abroad and off-campus Over seventy off-campus programs are available in over fifty countries and run for as little as ten days or as long as a year but generally last one semester. Programs provided through the Associated Colleges of the Midwest consortium take place usually for one semester at over a dozen locales around the globe and include cultural, scientific, economic, historical and other forms of study and research. These programs include scientific research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, government interning in Washington, D.C., and cultural activities in Florence, Italy. Monmouth College faculty frequently teach in these programs along with other members of the consortium including Carleton College, Grinnell College, and eleven other colleges. Other programs run exclusively by Monmouth College include a program in Scotland.
Fellowships and internships
Hundreds of internships are arranged annually for students through the Wackerle Career and Leadership Center. These include public service work around the United States. Students have also interned, beginning as early as the first year, at such businesses as Caterpillar Inc., Deere & Co., Monsanto, law offices, and medical offices. Summer internships are also available in such offices as Admission, Financial Aid, Student Life, Hewes Library, Marketing communication, and fundraising.
Summer research opportunities exist for students and also incoming freshmen and transfers in the sciences and other areas of study. This research is conducted with professors and students working in groups and have included such topics as lightning research, archaeology and music. Included are a stipend and room and board expenses.
Campus
Among the resources on the campus are academic buildings, athletic fields and facilities, three wildlife sanctuaries for the study of ecology, and trails and other areas for hiking. Notable resources include the Shields Collection of antiquities, the largest privately held collection of Native American artifacts in the region, the only direct copy of the Canopus Stone outside of the Cairo Museum, an astronomical observatory, the Mellinger writing center, the Wackerle Career and Leadership center, and sporting facilities. The Kasch Performance Hall provides a traditional setting for musical performances with excellent acoustics and includes a refurbished three-manual pipe organ. The Wells Theater has been upgraded with high tech lighting and sound equipment.
There are ten residence halls and five Greek houses. The campus has been expanded between 2000 and 2007 with three new residence halls, an apartment complex, an athletic complex, tennis complex, baseball, and soccer fields. It reopened the renovated Dahl Chapel and Auditorium containing a 600-seat English Chapel style recital hall/auditorium as well as music rehearsal space in 2003. In 2008, the April Zorn Memorial Stadium was completed, enlarging the seating capacity for football, lacrosse and track events to 2,600 and adding a new press box.
The largest building on campus is the Huff Athletic Center. It encompasses the college's existing Glennie Gymnasium and includes a field house with indoor tennis courts and track, natatorium, fitness complex, wellness suite, locker and training rooms, classrooms and offices.