Deborah Thompson

Deborah Thompson, Flagler College

Flagler College is one of the younger private liberal arts colleges, located in the oldest city in America. Founded in 1968, Flagler is located in the heart of St. Augustine, Florida, which was founded in 1565 by the Spanish -- 42 years before Jamestown and 55 years prior to the landing at Plymouth Rock.

The centerpiece of the 42-acre campus is the former Hotel Ponce de Leon, a grand resort built in 1888 by Henry Flagler, on the grounds of a former orange grove.  Today, the fully restored building, added to the National Historic Register in 1975, is considered a masterpiece of Spanish Renaissance architecture with beautiful grounds, hand-carved wood, imported marble, elaborate murals, and Tiffany stained glass windows, housing a women's residence hall, as well as administrative departments. If you're not lucky enough to get a room there, there are four other residence halls on the campus, as well as a library, a student center, an auditorium, a gymnasium, an art museum, and a laboratory and radio station for the Communication Department. And four of those buildings are historic structures as well.