Back to News 
New book utilizes hundreds of photos to tell college’s story.
By Madison Mathews
Johnson City Press
MILLIGAN COLLEGE — It’s said that every picture tells a story. That’s certainly the case with a new book that is to be released in October that uses hundreds of photographs to tell the story of Milligan College from its earliest days as the Buffalo Male and Female Institute to the appointment of Dr. Bill Greer as the college’s 15th president.
“Milligan College” is part of Arcadia Publishing’s Campus History Series, and it was written by one of Milligan’s own, Jan Loveday, who serves as director of graduate admissions for the teacher education program for non-traditional students.
With the retirement of Don Jeanes, Milligan’s 14th president, Loveday, who has worked at Milligan since 2007, said it was just the right time to celebrate the college’s history and create a new history book for the school.
“I’ve really come to love Milligan. My daughter just graduated from the undergraduate program in May, and she is now in the occupational therapy program, and through her experience as a student and my experience as an employee here, I have just really come to love and appreciate who Milligan is,” she said.
Using black-and-white photographs from throughout the college’s nearly 150-year-long history, Loveday set out to tell a visual history of the school. As she spent a year combing through the college archives looking for the photos that would best suit her needs, Loveday said putting the book together was a lot like working on a jigsaw puzzle.
“Milligan Archives is just full of wonderful photos, so it was very difficult to pick and choose, because they just have so many that are just fascinating,” she said.
Loveday didn’t know much about the college’s history before she started the work on the book, but she soon learned more as she got deeper into the archives and other history texts she used in the writing of the book.
The book is divided into four sections and features photographs of the people that helped shaped it into what it is today.
Rather than just focus on the school’s academic history, Loveday said she chose photos that would create a well-rounded look at Milligan — one that would focus on every facet of the Milligan experience.
“I chose ones that I thought were interesting. Ones that were of good quality and those that were a sampling of the different areas, not just academic history, but the story of interesting people, the story of our athletics, the story of our student body … tried to have a balance of all the different elements that make up Milligan’s history,” she said.
For a school that has given her family so much, Loveday said the idea of creating a pictorial history of the college was a way she could give back.
“It’s been a while since anyone has written or published a book about Milligan’s history, and like I said, with Dr. Jeanes’ retirement, I wanted to pay tribute to him. I think he’s done an awful lot of wonderful things for Milligan. It’s a great place, and it was just time to celebrate it,” she said.
The book is scheduled to be released Oct. 3. It will be available in bookstores and on www.amazon.com .
There will be book signings during Milligan’s Homecoming Oct. 29. Part of the proceeds from the book will go toward the Jessi Bryant Assistance Fund, which will eventually help eligible nontraditional teacher education students in the Early Childhood Education degree completion program.
