How much do you know about Transylvania University? Find the surprising answers to the questions listed below. Want to know more? Learn about our history.
To past generations of Transylvanians, the Kissing Tree was a favorite spot for couples to steal a kiss or two. There was a time when public displays of affection were frowned upon and on many college campuses, kissing in public was strictly against the rules. Somehow, a tacit agreement evolved at Transylvania that when sweethearts were under the Kissing Tree, administrators would look the other way while they stole a kiss. For more on the Kissing Tree, click here.
If Transylvania won an away football game the campus community was notified by the blowing of the steam whistle at the Power Plant. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, Transylvania suspended the football program "for the duration," but for a variety reasons, many financial, the program was never resumed. For more on the last seasons of Transylvania’s football program, see the Fall 2006 Transylvania magazine.
Lucy Shropshire Crump, Transylvania class of 1926, restored or repaired more than 200 books in Transylvania’s Special Collections. When she retired in 1990, she donated her Boxwood Bindery to the university. Crump was affectionately known as the Mayor of Gratz Park.
Fire was discovered in the basement on January 27, 1969. It gutted the center of the historic structure, but the wings, which housed administrative offices and records, were not seriously damaged. The price tag for restoration was $1.1 million, and the building was rededicated May 9, 1971.
John Fox Jr.’s novel The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come was one of the first in American literature to sell a million copies, as did his second novel, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. He was named American Author of the Year in 1904.
Joseph Buchanan, who was educated at Transylvania from 1806-07 and began teaching in the Transylvania Institutes of Medicine in 1809. Remembered today as the greatest American psychologist before William James, Buchanan also claimed to have isolated a way to use combustion to drive an engine without steam, possibly anticipating modern air engines.
Paul Preston ’79, an anesthesiologist at Kaiser Permanente’s San Francisco Medical Center, is a leader in healthcare safety training, using robotics to simulate emergencies that may occur during labor and childbirth. He was featured in U.S. News & World Report and an Associated Press article that was picked up by newspapers across the country. Click here to read article.
John D. Wright Jr’s Transylvania: Tutor to the West, traces the college from its chartering in 1780 to its status in the 1970s. Wright was a history professor at the university from 1950-86.
Transylvania University admits students regardless of age, race, color, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status, national origin, or any other classification protected by federal or state law or local ordinance.
300 North Broadway
