Eckerd College - Logos Yearbook (St Petersburg, FL)

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began on the Maritime Base. In March, Perkins and Will of Chicago and Connell, Pierce, Garland, and Friedman of Miami were named architects from among seventy-five firms considered. The President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhov er, v as made our first Charter Alumnus on April 22, 1959, by Dr. Kadel and Congressman William Cramer. Three days later, Mr. and Mrs. William Luther Cobb, of St. Petersburg, announced that they would sponsor the erection of the Library. Mr. Al Long, of baseball fame, donated $200,000 for scholarships in May. In September, Dr. Pratt announced the Mid-Winter Semester, a three-week program of concentrated study. In October, Brinson-Allen Construction Com- pany of Tampa began to clear the New Campus as their contribution to the College ' s establishment campaign. Between that September (1959) and the moment we began arriving for registration the next, Drs. Bevan and Kadel chose our Founding Faculty, while Dr. J. Thomas West went to work recruiting the Founding Freshmen. Dr. I. G. Foster, Dr. A. H. Carter, Dr. John Dixon, Dr. George Reid, Mr. John Satterfield, Dr. Everett Emerson, Dr. William C. Wilbur, Dr. Dexter Squibb, Dr. Pedro Trakas, Dr. Billy Wireman, Dr. Robert Meacham, Mr. Robert Hall, Dr. Ashley Johnson, Dr. Kenneth Keeton, Miss Florence Sherbourne, Miss Betty Crane, Dr. Dennis Anderson, Dr. Louis Guenther, Dr. Jack Wilson, Mr. Guy Owen Baker, Mrs. Francis Witaker and Dr. Clark Bouwman were Dr. Kadel and Dr. Bevan ' s flock. Dr. West and lots of scholarships charmed 152 of us to the little, concrete, peninsular world. • • • The Year of Beginning 1960-61 In our Pre-College Conferences that summer, we imbibed the heady brew of the break with tradition, the new start, and building (or founding) a College. In our naivete we came to believe that there was little we could not do. As if to prove it, we sat up one night and made a class flag with our emblem on it. Uca Pugnax, the Fiddler Crab, was, we were told, the first inhabitant of the New Campus. Since we were to share that honor with him, the College gave us each a small gold pin with his facsimile on it. In our conferences, we discussed standards of student life and matters of high policy. It was our first encounter with our mentors, the men and women who inhabited the offices of our beloved, if rebelled against, faculty and administration. Together, we formulated the basic guide lines of our collegiate existence. TOPICS TO BE COVERED: What publications should be started at the college? How would you structure o Student government? What responsibilities should it have? What major and minor sports should the college undertake? Are you in favor of an intercollegiate program? Should chapel service be compulsory? Should class attend- ance be compulsory? Do you approve of an honor system of conduct? If so, into what areas should it extend? Do you approve of the conventional grading system? Would you like to see grades and working for grades de-emphasized? What sys- tem would you suggest? What social functions and activities would you desire on campus? What sort of attire (dress) [sic] would you consider appropriate for men and women? Should there be any restriction on smoking? What should be the pol- icy on drinking? Should students be allowed to have cars on campus? Should there be curfews for students? Could you formulate an image of what a Founding Fresh- man at Florida Presbyterian College should be?

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We [The Ways and Means Committee] are unanimously convinced that a Presbyterian College is necessary, desirable, and feasible. We believe the time is at hand to establish in Florida a quality institution of Higher Education where young people may prepare themselves for their life v ' ork in the atmosphere of the finest Christian concepts. ' The Synod of Florida (U.S.) accepted those recommendations on May 20, 1958. At that time, the first Board of Trustees was elected. Meeting in Tampa on May 27, the Board selected Dr. Kadel as the first president. A site selection committee was chosen. On September 15, the Site Committee recommended and the Board of Trust ees accepted St. Petersburg as the location for the campus. The Board then adjourned to a joint ses- sion with the Board of Trustees of the Presbyterian College at Winter Haven, a college sponsored by the United Presbyterian Church in the USA. At that meeting, the two groups agreed to merge their efforts. The merger was formally approved by a joint meeting of the two synods at the Interim Campus on October 9, 1958. The Winter Haven movement had begun its efforts in 1957, as a group of interested lay- men led by Dr. Robert M. Pratt. At that time, they formed themselves into the Committee for a Presbyterian College at Winter Haven. Their efforts came to the attention of Dr. Kadel and his committee. Throughout the rest of that year, discussions were held on ways and means to found and possibly merge the two colleges. During this period, the Synod of Florida of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA approved the plan of its laymen and appointed Dr. Pratt as a committee-of-one to continue study. By May of 1958, the discussions between him and the Council of Representative Presbyterians (US) had broken down. The Southern Presbyterians decided to go on alone. At the May 1958, meeting of their Synod (see above), they elected a Board of Trustees and a President, Dr. Kadel. In June, the United Synod adopted a charter for the Winter Haven College and appointed a Board of Trustees. That action caused a reopening of the discussions about a possible merger of the two colleges. By September 1958, those discussions produced an agree- ment whereby the two colleges were combined on a three-fifths US and two-fifths United membership of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Kadel remained President, the St. Petersburg lo- cation for the campus was retained, and Dr. Pratt was to be appointed Vice-President for Development. That September was eventful in other ways, too. Dr. Kadel and Mrs. Emma H. Conboy, Administrative Assistant from the First Presbyterian Church of Orlando, moved from their store-front Orlando office to the Maritime Base in St. Petersburg. By November, plans were being laid for a fund-raising drive to build the college that was to cost $9,300,000 for a copitol plant for 1200 students. Dr. Kadel, Dr. Rosecrance and Dr. Bevan got ready to make a series of nationwide trips in search of a better curriculum. Dr. Rosecrance was unable to go. This trip was one of the first signs of things to come. Not only hod we begun to dare and dream in a significant way, but also, the Ford Foundation ' s Fund for the Advancement of Education had given us the first of many grants. With the New Year came the kick-off of the fund-raising campaign and the official ap- pointment of Dr. Bevan as Vice-President for Academic Affairs (Dean). Renovation work

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September 2, 1960, was the Big Day. On that day, with Convocation and many high- sounding words, the business of living out the founding of a college began; the years of planning drew to a close. It was the beginning of the difficult road to reconciliation between ideals and realities. We hadn ' t quite settled into our quarters when we had a visitor who sent the men scrambling to vacant rooms in the concrete Main Building. Hurricane Donna, with 125 mile-per-hour winds, roared up the coast, but passed to the east of Tampa Bay. For us, her passing was a two-day party with T.V., Miss Edna Blumenthal ' s inevitable pop-corn. Col. Garner, and a Hurricane Hop. Others, in Central Florida, were less fortunate. But aside from Donna, September passed into October without much disturbance of our now-familiar routine of classes, studies, bull sessions, cuts (of all kinds), coffee, so-so food, and the thud-thud-thud of the pile driver from eight in the morning until five at night with the roar of diesel pumps during the balance of the day. The city was building a new sea wall for the Base. If Donna had been severe, she was nothing compared to the storm which broke on our academic heads with mid-term examinations in mid-October. Fifty per-cent of us come out of that trial with one or more unsatisfactory grades. The picnic was over. The confidence of founding a college was shaken. There was nervous talk of scholarships and how to study. Worry, fear, and depression became common. Not even the calisthenic antics of Mr. Baker and his choir. Miss Blumenthal ' s pop-corn, or hundreds of counseling sessions at all hours with everyone from the Base ' s night watchman to Dr. Bevan were able to stem the breakdown of our morale. As Thanksgiving drew near, there was open talk of not returning in January. Then we went home for a long weekend. And after home cooking and some good doses of parental confidence mixed with scolding, we came back. The world wasn ' t quite so black anymore. Our pre-exam Christmas presents were many. We had our first Formal, the choir gave its first concert, the Trident published its first issue, and the basketball team that we ' d rallied around in the dark days of November as a morale booster, brought home the bacon in two straight wins. The St. Petersburg Times noted that a fellow named Rich Miller would certainly go down in the school ' s history as he scored twenty-eight points. The HMS Ulster, visiting our harbor, was sporting enough to accept our challenge to a whaleboat race. We lost, but gained an oar as our first trophy. But best of all was the news the Trident carried as its first headline: FEW DISMISSALS DUE AT SEMESTER END-BEVAN. Persons [he said] who have shown an Interest In the school through regular prepara- tion of assignments, attitude, and compliance with regulations, should not feel In danger of expulsion because of one or more unsatisfactory reports. ' ' Buoyed up with hard work, and all our pre-Christmas presents, we went to the mark again, and did much better than we had two months earlier. That crisis was over. So, too, was our first semester. January and the first mId-Wlnter arrived. The pressures of 8:00 classes and final exams were over. Most of us were back, breathing somewhat easier becouse we had mode It through all or part of our first semester courses. Now we had time