Whereas, on October 21, 2017, McDaniel College, formerly Western Maryland College (referred to in this preamble as the College ), located in Westminster, Maryland, will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first academic year of the College; Whereas the College was the first coeducational college founded south of the Mason-Dixon line and one of the first coeducational colleges in the United States; Whereas the founder of the College, Fayette Buell, a Westminster teacher, purchased approximately 8 acres of land shortly after the Civil War in 1866 to build the College; Whereas the College was named Western Maryland College at the suggestion of John Smith, President of Western Maryland Railroad; Whereas the first academic year of the College began on September 4, 1867, with 5 teachers and 37 male and female students enrolled in 8 areas of study; Whereas the State of Maryland approved the charter of the College on March 30, 1868; Whereas the first graduating class of the College honored 7 men and women on June 15, 1871; Whereas, in 1919, the Department of War authorized the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at the College, which continues as one of the oldest Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs in the United States; Whereas, in 1923, the first earned master’s degree was offered at the College for Master of Arts; Whereas, in January 1975, the College formally disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church and firmly established an identity as an independent private college of the liberal arts and sciences; Whereas, in 1980, the College received a Phi Beta Kappa charter, making it only the fourth college in Maryland to house a chapter of that prestigious national collegiate honor society; Whereas, in 1994, the College opened its first branch campus in Budapest, Hungary, which has awarded more than 200 students from over 20 countries baccalaureate degrees and has welcomed more than 400 students from the Westminster campus who have studied abroad there