Centre College in the 21st Century

In 2000, Centre made history as the smallest institution ever to host a General Election debate when the two vice presidential candidates, Sen. Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney, faced one another in the College's Norton Center for the Arts. CBS news anchor Dan Rather later described the debate at Centre as "the best vice presidential debate ever held." In 2012, Centre again hosted the nation's only vice presidential debate, between Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan. "They aced it in 2000," said Janet Brown, executive director of the Commission on Presidential Debates, after the 2012 debate, "and this year was even better." A thriving study abroad program attracts about 85 percent of Centre students. The Third Century Campaign—which celebrates Centre's 200th anniversary and finds the College ready to embrace its third century—raised $210 million.

In 2019, the College celebrated its bicentennial. It continues to thrive and grow, with enrollment about 1,450 and the faculty about 140. The first Posse students arrived from Boston in 2006. The first Grissom Scholars, first-generation college students awarded a highly competitive scholarship, arrived in 2015. The first Lincoln Scholars, who possess "the capacity and deep desire to change the world," arrived in 2016. By the fall of 2018, about 18 percent of students from the United States were students of color.

In 2019, the campus includes approximately 178 acres. Many of our buildings are new or newly renovated. The most recent is the Northside Residence Hall, which opened in August 2019. A major renovation and expansion to Olin Hall (science and mathematics) will open in 2020. Brockman Residential Commons opened in August of 2012. And a $21 million addition and renovation to Young Hall, one of two buildings dedicated to science, opened in 2010. 

Centre College and its people have had much to be proud of and thankful for in the past: outstanding leaders who demonstrated a consistent preference for quality over quantity, generations of devoted teachers and students, and an exceptionally successful body of alumni. But equally important among these qualities is a sense of connection with the past, giving added meaning to the present and providing inspiration for this tradition to be continued in the future.