Adventure in Education

K. Footlick Jerrold

Description

Wooster: From the Middle West to the world The College of Wooster was a proud but modest college for much of its life, exemplified by the titles of the first two volumes of its history, Wooster of the Middle West. In 1944, a Wooster alumnus named Howard Lowry became president and created the Independent Study (I.S.) program, distinguishing Wooster from other quality liberal arts colleges nationwide. I.S. was and is much more than a capstone research project for seniors; the heavy responsibility of mentoring undergraduate research was offset for faculty by university-level research leave, guaranteeing Wooster a faculty of true teacher-scholars.This third volume of Wooster's history begins with Lowry's arrival during World War II, when Navy V-5 cadets were almost the only males on campus. At war's end, a cadre of veterans taking advantage of the GI Bill arrived, young men tougher and worldlier than Wooster's traditional students, and the demographics changed. Typical for universities at the time, Wooster students followed the rules in the moderate '50s, before the '60s unsettled this and many other campuses. Dramatic blows struck in 1967, when the elegant 66-year-old bachelor president suffered a fatal heart attack in the San Francisco apartment of his 27-year-old woman friend, leaving a college shocked both by his death and by financial strains that few knew about until then.Wooster's next decade was rocky and cautiously traversed. One antidote for the financial crisis was expansion of the student body, which grew revenue but lowered academic standards and frustrated an overworked faculty. In 1977, Henry Copeland, a 41-year-old historian, was the surprising choice for president, and his term marked a double triumph: restoring the College's academic integrity and raising endowment from $15 million to more than $150 million in little more than a decade. Roads to success are rarely smooth-a failed presidential search following Copeland's retirement embarrassed the College-but the Wooster family proved too solid and too dedicated to stumble for long.As An Adventure in Education brings Wooster into the twenty-first century, it finds a picture-book campus with extraordinary new facilities, national recognition for both I.S. and the quality of its teaching, a student body diverse in terms domestic and international, and a striking confidence and ambition that might have surprised even Howard Lowry. How the college got from there to here is a tale instructive for anyone concerned with American higher education.

Sujets

• History of the Americas
• Midwestern United States
• History of education
• Local history
• Histoire

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 03 avril 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631011849
• Langue: English

Extrait

An Adventure in Education

An Adventure in Education

The College of Wooster
from
Howard Lowry
to the
Twenty-First Century

JERROLD K. FOOTLICK

The Kent State University Press
KENT, OHIO
The photograph on the front of the dust jacket is by Matt Dilyard, official photographer of The College of Wooster. In the two eight-page photo inserts, Dilyard also made the photos of Ray McCall, Ted Williams, Gordon Tait, Steve Moore, Maria Sexton, Mark Wilson, David Gedalecia, Hayden Schilling, Flo and Stan Gault, and all of the photos except for the one of Kauke Arch. Some of the other photos appeared in issues of the Index or Voice , which are in Special Collections, but the photographers, who may have been students, cannot be determined. Others of the earlier photos were almost certainly made by Rod Williams and Art Murray for the College and by Bert Bond for the Daily Record .
© 2015 by The College of Wooster
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ISBN 978-1-60635-245-8
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information for this title is available at the Library of Congress.
19   18   17   16   15          5   4   3   2   1
To the memory of Art Murray, whose love for Wooster was unbounded, and whose many beneficences, often unsung, were immeasurable
And to the “Readers,” Bob Tignor, Gene Bay, Mary Neagoy, who contributed so much to the College once again, as they have for their adult lives
And to Ceil, Always
Contents
Preface
Part 1: The Lowry Years
1. A Visionary Arrives
2. The Vets Arrive—and I.S., Too!
3. Not as Quiet as It Seemed
4. Celebration and Dismay
Part 2: Changing with the Times
5. Scientia et Religio ex Uno Fonte
6. “Quite Astounding Women”
7. The Journey to Diversity
8. New and Renew
9. Homes Away from Home
10. Ex Libris
11. The Scots Tale
12. A Chapel for Its Time
Part 3: Renewal, Growth, Ambition
13. The Worst of Times … and Revival
14. The World Intrudes
15. The Word Is Quality
16. Searching for a President
17. The Legacy of a Hometown Boy
18. In the Long Run, We’ll Be Fine
19. Alpha and Omega
20. Teaching and Research, Well Remembered
21. The Future Is Now
Notes
Sources Cited
Index
Preface
To be invited by my colleagues on the Board of Trustees to write the modern history of The College of Wooster is an honor. The author of two earlier volumes, Lucy Lillian Notestein, was a distinguished graduate of the College, whose father was a member of its first graduating class in 1873 and of its faculty for fifty-five years. Perhaps no better distinction exists between the modest Wooster she described in its earlier days and the aspirational College of today than the titles of the three volumes. The first two were both called Wooster of the Middle West . We do not call this volume Wooster of the World, but it would hardly be inappropriate.
My connections are more modest than Notestein’s, but I am not bereft. When my family moved to Wooster in 1942, four faculty families were our neighbors, less than two blocks from campus. My father, a pharmacist, organized and supplied the pharmacy for the Navy V-5 unit during World War II (one benefit was tickets to the Tommy Dorsey Spotlight Bands concert). As a boy walking up Bever Street to watch football or baseball practice on campus, I was greeted by Prexy Wishart from his retirement front yard. I knew Howard Lowry first while I was a teenager, then as a Wooster student, and afterward he was a friend. I believe I can fairly call each of his successors as president—Garber Drushal, Henry Copeland, Stan Hales, and Grant Cornwell—a friend. I have been a trustee of the College since 1978 (with one short break) and am now an emeritus life trustee. I could not begin to name my warm ties to other alumni, trustee colleagues, and faculty; suffice it to say that on research trips to Wooster, I regularly visited Lowry Center, where a group of retired faculty gathers every morning for coffee and gossip.
This volume can be distinguished from Notestein’s in a number of other ways, beginning with perspective. Notestein wrote that as she was still working on the manuscript for the second volume in the 1960s, Lowry, her friend, insisted that the book end in 1944, without any discussion of his presidency; the volume should allow for historical perspective. My marching orders from the Board of Trustees were to bring the history as closely up to date as reasonable; we agreed to end with the spring 2012 dedication of the Scot Center. Some would say, to paraphrase a Truman Capote complaint about another writer’s work, that writing about events this close to the present is not history, it’s just journalism. So be it. In a similar vein, I occasionally use quotes without attribution, as I promised the speakers I would. This fits my mantra for the book: it is intended to tell a story, as fairly and accurately as possible, even when the information is unpleasant; this is not, after all, a coffee-table picture book. But neither The College of Wooster nor anyone associated with it should be embarrassed.
We worked to make the book both informative and readable (even, it might be hoped, sometimes entertaining). One way to confirm this goal is that readers, certainly including loyal alumni, say to themselves or others a number of times, “Gee, I didn’t know that.” I made some other decisions in consultation with my first readers. One concerns names. Thus, it is Stan Gault, not Stanley C. Gault; Ted Williams, not Theodore Roosevelt Williams; Carol Dix, not Carolyn Dix or Mrs. Raymond E. Dix, as she was identified in catalogs. I conducted scores of formal interviews and scores more fruitful informal conversations, and I spent uncountable hours in Special Collections (the College archives). I use footnotes sparingly. In the endnotes, I do not list the source for every fact or quotation; rather, I provide the general sources for all the facts and quotations in each chapter. Anyone who wants to pursue them can do so—and this is important: All of the research material, including transcripts of the interviews, can be found in Special Collections.
Among the earliest interviewees were three people I considered vital to the story: Clare Adel Schreiber, wife of the chairman of the Department of German, close friend of Lowry’s, longtime director of the College nursery school; Bill Kieffer, among the most eminent chemists in Wooster’s chemistry department; Vi Startzman Robertson, beloved both as director of the College health service and within the city of Wooster, where the Viola Startzman Free Clinic stands in tribute. All of them, now gone, were in their nineties when I interviewed them, all of them mentally alert. Al Van Wie, dedicated alumnus, basketball coach, athletic director, campaigned hard to make this project happen. Al died a few weeks before the manuscript was completed; he is the person I regret most not seeing the finished product.
A note about organization: One obvious pattern would have been to trace the College history chronologically from 1944 to 2012. Yet, so many important topics range through nearly the entire period that to drop them into each chapter would be to minimize their impact. These include religion and religious studies, issues of race, the role of female faculty, buildings, sports. So the book first covers the Lowry years chronologically, follows with topical chapters, then returns to chronology for later years. This might guide those with particular interest in certain topics or certain years.
It hardly needs saying how much advice and cooperation the author of a history like this needs. Obviously, those who gave their time and thought to the formal interviews were critically important, and many others offered helpful information. Not everyone who contributed can be mentioned here, but a few must be, beginning with my friends and colleagues on the Board of Trustees, led by its chairman Jim Wilson, who brought me to the project, and his supportive successor, Dave Gunning. Sally Whitman currently holds the title executive assistant for presidential events, but having served in the president’s office since 1985, she could be more accurately described as its institutional memory; she smoothed my task in innumerable ways. On the matter of support, thanks must go to Ken Bogucki, general manager of the Wooster Inn, and the Inn’s guest services manager, Kathy Kruse, whose generosity made my frequent visits comfortable and pleasant.
The publisher of this third volume of Wooster’s history—as with the first two volumes—is the Kent State University Press. The professionalism of its staff, guided by Director Will Underwood, eased an always difficult task. I thank the managing editor, Mary Young. And I thank especially Erin Holman for her dedicated and thoughtful, even witty, editing.
It simply would not have been possible to produce this book without Special Collections at the College. Denise Monbarren, its skilled and extremely well-organized director, and her associates responded to every need and request with care, patience, and good humor. For most of my research time, Denise’s deputy, Elaine Smith Snyder, also provided unfailing aid. Denise chooses and trains a group of careful, hardworking interns; among the several I worked with, I must mention Kelsey Williams, class of 2014, and Dan Grantham and Katie Morton, class of 2013. The interns also searched the archives for photographs; in this area I thank Tammy Troup, who prepared the photos for publication, and offer very special thanks to Matt Dilyard, the College photographer since 1994, who pored through his own voluminous and valuable files.
Now to my first readers. We agreed at the start that the book needed additional eyes and judgments from trustees with extraordinary knowledge, background, and dedication to the College. I cannot imagine how the three people I asked could have been more supportive or more generous. They spent many hours studying