Following Professor Thurber’s resignation in 1895, Professor Sisson was made Acting Principal for one year and Professor Frank L. Shepardson succeeded to the vacancy in 1896. A graduate of Brown, he came to Colgate with a fine record as a teacher and as principal of Worcester Academy in Massachusetts. He was to discharge his duties in the Academy with distinction and on its closing in 1912 became Treasurer of the University and Professor of Greek.
Theological instruction in the 1890’s was strengthened and made flexible by the introduction of electives in 1892 and by lengthening all courses of study from two to three years. In 1894, as a new departure, a Bachelor of Divinity degree was authorized for students graduated with an A.B. who had taken the full three-year course, including courses in Hebrew and the Semitic languages and written a thesis.
Easily the most outstanding Seminary professor was William Newton Clarke who had been induced in 1890 to leave the pastorate of the village Baptist church to fill the vacant chair in theology of the late Dr. Dodge. No appointment could have been more momentous. He had graduated from Madison in 1861, served the University for many years as Trustee and Secretary of the Board, been minister to churches in New England and Montreal, and taught in the Toronto Baptist College. For some time he had struggled with theological problems in a period when new interpretations and analyses gave rise to much controversy. His first classroom lectures were the distillation of his advanced thinking and evoked keen interest and active discussion. Though he provoked harsh criticism for what many considered his unorthodox ideas, he maintained that he “endeavored reverently and honestly to deal with the Christian truth.”
His students were not required to agree with their teacher but rather “encouraged to think for themselves and form their own conclusions.”
These lectures saw publication in 1894 as Outline of Christian Theology, which has gone through 21 editions and represents a milestone in the development of progressive theology in the United States.
Among Dr. Clarke’s colleagues was David F. Estes, a graduate of the University of Vermont, who had studied at the Newton Theological Institution and at Gottingen, had taught in the Atlanta Baptist College, and been pastor in four New England churches. He took over Dr. Harvey’s courses in New Testament in 1891 and in 1892 followed Professor Thomas as University Librarian. Arthur Jones was added in