to NCAA Division III On February 20, 2012, the NCAA announced it had granted Berea permission to begin a one-year period exploring membership in its Division III, non-scholarship athletic program. On May 4, 2016, the USA South announced that Berea would join the league effective in the 2017–18 school year. Joining the CCS The USA South announced in February 2022 that it would split into two leagues the following July, with eight of its then 19 members, including Berea, establishing the new Collegiate Conference of the South. Men's basketball On February 4, 1954, Irvine Shanks was in the lineup for Berea against Ohio Wilmington, breaking the color barrier in college basketball in Kentucky. Notable alumni and faculty Daniel S. Bentley (1850–1916), American minister, writer, newspaper founder John "Bam" Carney – educator; member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from Campbellsville Dean W. Colvard – former president of Mississippi State University, notable for his role in a 1963 controversy surrounding the participation of the university's basketball team in the NCAA Tournament John Courter – educator; an American composer, organist, and carillonneur, considered one of the leading contemporary composers for the carillon John Fenn – recipient of 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Despite his future success, Fenn always felt that he was limited by the lack of meaningful math education in his undergrad years. Finley Hamilton – United States Representative from Kentucky. Christopher Thomas Hayes – American film and television actor, writer, and puppeteer. Performs the characters of Hoots the Owl and Elijah, father of Wes, on Sesame Street bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins) – Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies, author of over thirty books Julia Britton Hooks – second African-American woman in the United States to graduate from college and paternal grandmother of Benjamin Hooks Silas House – NEH Chair in Appalachian Studies, author and activist George Samuel Hurst - A health physicist and professor of physics at the University of Kentucky Juanita M. Kreps – U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Jimmy Carter C.E. Morgan – author of All the Living and The Sport of Kings Tharon Musser – Tony Award-winning lighting designer known especially for her work on A Chorus Line Willie Parker – abortion provider and reproductive rights activist K.C. Potter – academic administrator and LGBT rights activist Jeffrey Reddick – American screenwriter, best known for creating the Final Destination series Jack Roush – founder, CEO,