An old and new look at St. Andrews University

Apr 4, 2019

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The old McRae family station-wagon was bulging with luggage and boxes that morning in 1961, when Momma made a left turn from our family farm onto the highway to go to St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg. In the past three years, she always had made a right turn to go to Flora MacDonald Presbyterian College in Red Springs.

Wedged inside that day, amid all their possessions, sat two of her seven children. Both were going to be students at brand new St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg.

I, Sylvia McRae, was a rising senior who would complete my last year under the old catalog from Flora MacDonald. As we rode, thoughts of student teaching and job interviews inhabited my head

My sister, Anne McRae, had excitedly discussed the new curriculum she would experience at St. Andrews. Her freshman courses would involve the professors’ taking a totally new, broader approach to covering their areas of expertise. “Christianity and Culture” was the name for this innovative program.

I graduated in 1962 and she graduated in 1965.

A lover of history and of knowledge, I always felt enriched by having attended colleges, which progressively had chosen to combine the best of the old, and to embrace the new, as time passed. This approach gave graduates, both the wisdom and the current information, they needed to function in the evolving universe.

Proof that this is even more true here in 2019 (fifty-seven years later), is the information I acquired recently in a visit to the “St. Andrews University” campus. First of all, in my day we did not have the athletic fields and teams that they now have! Nor did we have the beautiful equine campus and nationally recognized equine program. (The University now offers such degrees as Equine Business Management and in Therapeutic Equine Management!)

In addition to the usual extensive academic program, there are also advanced computer programs offered that reflect the modern times in which we live. One such popular one is “Game and Interactive Media design.” In the art department I actually stood by a statue that had been PRINTED (my term) out of a computer! A degree in forensic science is also available.

Is this dedication to making the education available at St. Andrews relevant to the universe, as it evolves, not why education exists?

My body may have been 78 years old as I drove away from the campus, but my mind rested eagerly on the brink of the future, as I realized how exciting it was going to be to see how St. Andrews was going to address the world to come.

Sylvia McRae McLean is a member of the Class of 1962, which was the first graduating class of the college.