H istory’s lessons teach us that our world and every aspect of it evolves, just as it does in the pursuit of higher education. Indeed, it is the promise of learning, growth, and betterment that marshal the forces of change in our individual lives; beyond that promise, education is hollow.

Meredith’s founders spent years advocating for a first-rate women’s college. They urged the Baptist State Convention to accept their proposals for its establishment, rode the countryside accepting donations (often as little as a single dollar) in support, and scrimped and saved to ensure women – some, not all – had the same access to higher education as men. 

From its earliest days, Meredith adopted the lamp of learning and light – LUX – as its calling.  We welcome the light of knowledge and learning, and we embrace the growth, difficult as it may be, that comes with change. Some of that change has brought us a greater sense of our world and the humanity we are called to serve, as in the admission of women of color in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Other changes brought us more expansive avenues to the world, provided through the early global work of many of our faculty and graduates and extending to today’s emphasis on study abroad.