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

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m • gSgSfcJWSI Dr. Anderson turned his eyes back up to- wards the (President ' s) Building. Did you know, he asked, that there ' s a house in Martha ' s Vineyard just like this one? that back area of the campus to the trustees of Sibley Hospital in return for a site for the University ' s School of Nursing. I wanted that land for expansion, he admitted. Feeling in nearby Spring Valley was running high against the proposed hospital ' s lo- cation, recalled Anderson, who said the neighbors had been referring to it as the butcher factory. In order to keep the hospital away from AU, the Spring Valley residents were planning to petition the District of Columbia Zoning Commission to rezone that area for single story resi- dences. Knowing that a rezoning hearing would take place and also knowing that the hearing room was small, Dr. Anderson chartered buses, rounded up students, and bused them to the hearing before the Spring Valley residents arrived. When they did arrive, there was no room. Stu- dents filled all of the seats and the standing room area. Dr. Anderson ' s delaying tactics worked only tempo- rarily, however, because the Com- mission voted to rezone the area by a 2-1 margin. What they told me in effect, said President Anderson, was that they were going to run me out of town before I ever got started. I told them they weren ' t going to scare me. And he wasn ' t scared. Following the vote by the commissioners, the University sued the Commission in an attempt to get the decision reversed. The judge who heard the case agreed with the University and reversed the Commission ' s decision on the grounds that it had no right to rezone land granted through federal charter, commenting that the land should be used as the University saw fit. The case, said Anderson, finally ended up in the United States Su- preme Court which upheld the judge ' s original opinion. That decision, re- called the president, was sustained at every level. If we had lost our court battle, today we would have a carved up campus.

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Vineyard just like this one? This was a residence when I came here. This is a copy of Governor Macey ' s home. Macey was governor of Massachu- setts. See that plaque there? I put that there, noting that this was the site of old Fort Gaines. It was a Civil War fort. I thought people should know that it was here. Never pausing in his narrative, Dr. Anderson turned towards the neighboring Wesley Theological Sem- inary. Explaining that his old univer- sity, Hamline had wanted to move the seminary from Western Maryland to its campus, Dr. Anderson, recalled that he had asked Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam what the chances were of adding a theology complex to this campus. According to Dr. Anderson, Bishop Oxnam had said, If you ' ll get me the land, I ' ll get you the seminary. The University deeded nine acres of land to Wesley Theological Seminary, and the seminary moved to the cam- pus, with much of the money for its physical facilities coming from the Kresge family. Walking down the drive to the Hughes-McDowell-Leonard Halls com- plex, Dr. Anderson paused again, his eyes sweeping the dormitories, all completed during his tenure here. We employed a firm to lay out a plan for the future. We had to see the whole thing, said the president. Of chief concern, he said, was main- taining the natural beauty of the cam- pus. He wanted to keep the campus ' s natural hills and ravines despite ad- vice he had had to the contrary from people who thought the whole area should be bulldozed off and leveled. The president ' s wishes prevailed, and the complex was built into the ravines. Past the dorms, we stopped at the tennis courts and Reeves Athletic Field. Pointing towards the field, the president recalled that It was a mud pile. There was a man — a wealthy man — on our Board of Trustees, he con- tinued. It was John M. Reeves, who used to be a coach. I thought he would be a logical person to ask to invest in athletics. I asked him down to the campus and we traipsed through the mud. After our walk, I asked him if he ' d finish our athletic field for us, he said he would, and he did. The president went on to explain that even before the field was finished, he realized that there should be a track around it. He went back to Reeves, and he asked him for the additional money for the track. Reeves gave it to him. We walked down onto the athletic field and stood at the end, looking down towards the Communications Building and the Watkins Art Building. Again Dr. Anderson ' s hand traced an imaginary area at the far end of the field. According to him, the University Board of Trustees had voted to give 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.

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Hurst R. Anderson is a man of constant motion. His hands, his fingers jab the air to re-emphasize a point. He claps his hands to finish an explanation or to describe an idea. He cannot sit still, or when he does, he poises on the edge of his chair.