The ceremony, timed to coincide with International Women’s Day, will include remarks by Larry D. Shinn, Berea College president. College First Lady Nancy Shinn will unveil the portrait of Miss Olivia Phelps Stokes. The unveiling will precede the Women’s Studies “Peanut Butter and Gender” lecture program at noon that will feature Joan Callahan, a Professor of Philosophy and the Director of Women's Studies at the University of Kentucky.
Miss Olivia Phelps Stokes, as well as her sister Miss Caroline Phelps Stokes, shared philanthropic interests that advanced the Christian religion by giving money for the construction of chapels at such diverse locations as Columbia University, Berea College, and Tuskegee Institute. They also provided financial support for advancing the cause of women and of American minorities (especially African-Americans and Native Americans), strengthening education, and improving housing for the poor.
The story of Phelps Stokes Chapel begins in 1902 when a fire destroyed the previous chapel of Berea College. That chapel, built in the Gothic style with “double lancet windows, a beautiful bell tower, a furnace, and gas lights,” and able to seat about 500 people, was near Chestnut Street, (on a site roughly in front of the present-day Frost building). However, on the afternoon of January 30, 1902, fire destroyed that chapel, in spite of gallant efforts by Berea’s students who carried water hand over hand in a bucket brigade to fight the fire.

Upon hearing of the loss, Miss Olivia Phelps Stokes of New York, one of the first independent women philanthropists in the United States, determined to turn tragedy into triumph. She offered to pay for construction of a new “plain, commodious chapel as soon as it can be erected by student labor.” Use of student labor was the first proviso that accompanied Miss Phelps Stokes offer. The second was that her gift be anonymous until after her death. This second restriction was easily honored, and the new building was known during its earliest years simply as “the Chapel.” However, since most student labor at the time was unskilled, such as pumping and carrying water or chopping wood for furnaces and stoves, Miss Phelps Stokes’ requirement of using student labor presented more of a challenge to the College.

In meeting Miss Phelps Stokes’ challenge, the Chapel truly became Berea’s own, having been built with student labor and College materials. The student-made bricks came from Berea’s kiln in the brickyard at Rucker’s Knob and were used by the bricklaying students to construct strong walls in the Flemish Bond pattern. Other students hewed the stones for the foundation from rocks 12 miles south of the Berea Ridge. The lumber for the oak flooring and woodwork was felled by students in the College’s forest. The wooden wall paneling and the deeply coffered ceiling were made by young men in Woodwork. They took each section as it was made, carried it over to the new Chapel, installed it, and then measured for the next section.

The students were superintended by Josiah Burdette, then-head of the Woodwork department, with T. H. Horton, foreman in carpentry. Mr. G. T. Spencer was foreman in the brick and stone work. They followed the design created for the Chapel by Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, a noted New York architect with the firm of Howells and Stokes, and the nephew of Miss Olivia Phelps Stokes. His plans called for the structure to be 83 feet wide by 150 feet long with a bell and clock tower 105 feet high. The original bell in the tower was cast by the Meneely Bell Company in Troy, New York. Later, in 1917, when Miss Phelps Stokes gave Berea College a set of chimes to commemorate the 25th anniversary of William Goodell Frost’s presidency, the bell was removed and given to the Middletown School. Today, that bell is on display at the First Baptist Church of Berea on Walnut Meadow Pike.

The cornerstone was laid at Commencement in 1904 by Mrs. Elizabeth Rogers, who had been present when the original College Chapel had been built. When the Chapel was completed and dedicated two years later, her husband, John A. R. Rogers made the prayer of dedication, his last public service for the College which he had helped to found before the Civil War.

Berea, the South’s first interracial and coeducational college, focuses on learning, labor, and service. Berea charges no tuition, admitting only academically promising students, primarily from Appalachia, who have limited economic resources. In national rankings, Berea is consistently named the South's top comprehensive college. All students must work 10 hours weekly in College jobs, earning money for books, room, and board. Graduates from Berea go on to distinguish themselves and the College in many fields, living out the College’s motto “God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth.”