American University - Talon / Aucola Yearbook (Washington, DC)

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If someone were to classify people by seasons of the year, he would have no trouble finding the proper one for Dr. Hurst R. Anderson, president of American University for the last 16 years. Autumn would surely be the season for the man who came, who saw, who built a university. Autumn is maturity, a time for harvest, and Hurst R. Ander- son, when he retires as president in June, 1968, will have reaped a bounti- ful harvest for the University he found strangling in 1952. Autumn is a time for the coolness and crispness Hurst R. Anderson has displayed as a builder of an educational institution now coming into its own. Autumn represents the twilight of a year, and Hurst R. Anderson, when this writer toured the campus with him in Novem- ber, was in the twilight of his career as a university administrator. The day Dr. Anderson and I went on a walking tour of the campus — a campus whose face, whose life he had molded — was the sort of day which mirrored the kind of man he is — bright and invigorating. Historians of this university will probably label him as the builder. They will write of his physical accom- plishments, of the educational plant which he fought for, planned for, and built in the face of tremendous chal- lenge which might have cowed a more timid man. Timidity is not an attribute of Hurst R. Anderson. His Midwestern back- ground dictates directness and a no- nonsense approach to problems. He has a nervous vitality, an unceasing charge of high voltage energy, as one of his colleagues described it, which almost magnetizes those with whom he becomes involved. He gen- erates excitement and interest and drive as he talks, discusses, plans. Hurst R. Anderson is a man of con- stant motion. His hands, his fingers never stop as he talks. His fingers jab the air to re-emphasize a point. He claps his hands to finish an explana- tion or to describe an idea. He cannot sit still, or when he does, he poises on the edge of his chair. This was the kind of man who met me on that November day — overcoat already on, hat in hand, not wanting to waste a moment of time as he readied himself to walk around the campus he ' d walked around so many times in the past. Two photographers were to accom- pany us on the tour, and one was late. When I explained that the other photo- grapher was on his way, he ushered me into his office, slipping out of his top coat and seating himself behind a huge, hand-carved desk. Well, let ' s start right now. There ' s plenty we can talk about right here, he said. Hurst R. Anderson came to Ameri- can University from Hamline Univer- sity in Saint Paul, Minnesota. As president of Hamline, he was not eager to leave, and when AU ' s Board of Trustees asked him to consider coming to Wa shington, he admitted that he was hesitant. The university was floundering, and Hamline was strong, and perhaps that fact — that one point which made him hesitant — was the deciding factor in his decision to leave Saint Paul and come to Washington. AU represented a challenge, a Herculean task — a job in which he would become com- pletely absorbed. Hurst R. Anderson came to Wash- ington and to American University. He got his first glimpse of the campus in the summer of 1952. I almost had heart failure, was his terse recollection of his first view of the campus. I ' ve never seen a place in worse physical shape. He painted a graphic picture of the campus. Cinder roads wound through the campus from Ward Circle. The cinders were provided by a wheezing, gasping, out-of-date heating plant. Tangled vegetation threatened to en- gulf many parts of the campus. Ander- son swung around in his chair, got up and went to his office window. Out there, he said, pointing to- wards the back of the President ' s Building, was nothing but brush. He looked down towards the Reeves Athletic Field. When I came here, he explained, that field was nothing but a sea of mud when it rained. It was never finished because the university ran out of money. The 7 rain would wash the mud down onto our neighbors in Spring Valley, and they were up in arms about it. cy? Legacy gf Stone and Steel

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iliH.il -co mi He ushered me into his office, slipping out of his top coat and seating himself behind a huge, hand-carved desk. Well, let ' s start right now. There ' s plenty we can talk about right here, he said. He recalled that where Gray, Roper, Clark, and McCabe Halls now stand was once the location for a squallid collection of veteran ' s huts or shacks as he described them. Few buildings dotted the campus. Mary Graydon Center was there. It was a dormitory. The McKinley Build- ing was there, but it was not being used by the University. It had been leased to the telephone company. Hamilton House was there. It, too, was a dormitory, and the original Battelle Library building was there. There was also Hurst Hall, the venerable old building for which so many years had been All ' s only building. The University ' s bleak physical appearance was made much blacker and unattractive by the $250,000 oper- ating deficit which pulled the noose tighter on an institution seemingly bent upon self-destruction. It was in the face of this almost incredible challenge that Hurst R. Anderson collided head-on with The American University. His optimistic nature had never been more evident than when he leaned forward over his desk and said, In 1952, the stage was set for steps forward. His steps forward were to turn into giant strides in the next decade and a half. What was his greatest and most immediate task after moving into the President ' s Building? Getting the University out of finan- cial trouble, he replied. I pulled telephone extensions out of faculty offices; I fired secretaries, and I wasn ' t very popular in those days, he re- called with a laugh. But his belt tightening paid off, for at the end of the first year he had cut the deficit in half, and as he noted with more than a touch of pride in his voice, We ' ve had no accumulated debts since. It was at this point in our interview that the tardy photographer arrived, and Dr. Anderson was ready to go. Back on went the overcoat, a few hurried instructions to his secretary, and off we went on a tour of campus which was to span two and a half hours. Photographers in tow, we made it down the front steps of the Presi- dent ' s building and around the corner to the back and stopped. Dr. Anderson turned his eyes back up towards the building. Did you know, he asked, that there ' s a house in Martha ' s