Last fall, Berea College became the first institution of higher education in the United States to construct and operate its own hydroelectric generating station. The plant, on the Kentucky River near the Estill County community of Ravenna, is set to produce about of half of the electricity the college uses each year.
Now Berea President Lyle Roelofs has his eyes on three other abandoned navigational locks on the Kentucky that the school could turn into additional hydro generators.
“I don’t think we should do more than one at a time, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t do all four,” says Roelofs, who is a physicist by training. “Then the water molecules generate electricity for us four times, not just once.”
The hydro plant is part of Berea’s commitment to sustainability. In addition to making clean power for the liberal arts college, the project benefits the regional economy and citizens in several ways.
“We used a local contractor out of Pike County to do most of the work. The tax revenue goes to Estill County schools. The electricity we sell, discounted from the wholesale rate, to the Jackson Electric Cooperative,” says Roelofs. “So their customers are getting the benefit of a 6 percent discount on the electricity that the plant produces.”
For its campus building projects, Berea follows green construction practices that result in so-called LEED certification for sustainability and energy efficiency. The school also maintains its own 9,000-acre forest, the bulk of which was acquired by a Berea faculty member in the 1920s. While the property was once clear cut, Roelofs says the timber is now sustainably harvested using draft horse teams and by felling only diseased or damaged trees that are expected to die within the next five years.
“We don’t disrupt the forest. We send in the horses, they pull the logs out,” he sells. “We either use the wood in our student crafts area or we sell it to specialty mills because it is high quality lumber, and if you do it that way, over time your forest gets healthier.”
Promoting Diversity, Building Community
Sustainable living is only one of the values Berea College strives to instill in its students. Started by abolitionist Rev. John G. Fee in 1855, Berea was a pioneer in interracial education, schooling a roughly equal number of Black and white students in its early classes. The school was forced to segregate in 1920 under a state mandate called the Day Law, but then reintegrated again starting in 1950.
Berea primarily serves economically challenged students from Kentucky and the Appalachia region. Roelofs says today about 40 percent of attendees are students of color.
“Diversity’s in our DNA,” he says. “Now we have a wonderful rainbow of people from all over the world and almost all ethnicities.”
By bringing youth of different backgrounds and beliefs together on the residential campus, Roelofs says the students have to figure out how to understand, respect, and learn from each other. He says that helps build a vibrant college community, and gives those students tools they can use to build strong, diverse communities wherever their post-graduation lives take them.
Another unique aspect of Berea life is that students pay no tuition. (They do pay about $1,000 a year for housing, meals, fees, and books.) In return for a free education, all students are required to work 10 to 15 hours a week on campus or around Berea, a town of about 15,000 people in southern Madison County.
“They’re not just students, they’re all responsible for some part of the work of the college,” says the president. “When they are all in the same circumstances… they bring the best out in one another.”
Berea offers traditional liberal arts degrees, but Roelofs says their most popular program is computer science. To keep up with demand, he says the school will build two new buildings and expand their industrial arts offerings to help prepare students to work in technology firms, advanced manufacturing, and artificial intelligence as well as start their own business.
“Starting careers in those areas are $60,000, $70,000, $80,000. That’s two to three times as much as the average family income at Berea College,” says Roelofs. “That student not only can do for him or herself but can do something for their family too.”
Even though Berea College has zero tuition, Roelofs says he doesn’t think college degrees should be free for everyone. He contends that students that come from wealthier families should pay their fair share of the costs.
“I don’t think college should be free,” he says. “It should be free or a very low cost for those who can’t afford it.”
A Transition to Retirement
While Roelofs has seeded Berea’s growth over the last decade, he won’t be around to see many projects come to fruition. The president recently announced his retirement from the school effective next summer.
“I came to college presidency with the idea that really lengthy college presidencies are not such a good idea,” he says.
Roelofs says he is looking forward to a retirement filled with paddleboarding, hiking, bird watching, woodworking, reading, knitting, and Sudoku puzzles. The Michigan native spent more 35 years in teaching and research before taking administrative positions at Haverford College and Colgate University. The one thing he says he won’t do is become a higher education consultant.
“I believe the best way for colleges to solve their problems is to figure them out themselves, not to pay Lyle Roelofs $5,000 to come in and give them advice,” he says.
Although he planned to stay at the helm of Berea for 10 years, Roelofs and his wife agreed to remain an additional year after the Board of Trustees requested the extra time to facilitate a smooth transition. Roelofs says he wants to ensure the school is well positioned for its next leader.
“Most presidential transitions give you more energy, new ideas, new excitement,” he says. “So at the end of the day, it will be a good thing for Berea.”
