Gannon University - Lance Yearbook (Erie, PA)

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Msgr. Nash addresses students at a Baccalaureate Mass as Arch- bishop John Mark Cannon looks on. An everyday photo, now valued because one of the long-since-vanished Old Main lions is shown. Tradition has it that the lions now sleep at the bottom of Lake Erie, though no one seems to know what happened for sure. Msgr. Nash announces the ap- pointment of Dr. Joseph Scotti- no as President of Gannon Col- lege— June 1, 1977. During that whole period of time, no matter what group it was, if you could get them separated into ones, or twos, you could have a good talk with them, he said. You put them together in a group and you may as well shut up. I'm no match for 20 stu- dents who all want to talk at once. October 1976. Msgr. Nash, now 61 years old, wants to retire. He doesn't have to retire until he is 65. But by then there may be new problems — decreasing enrollments, scrambling for federal aid, creating new, spe- cialized programs to help keep Gan- non afloat. These are problems enough without the added task of a lengthy and detailed presidential selection process. So, he tells the trustees, he wants to retire. Find a president to take over in July, 1977, he tells them. There are good years at Gannon, he says in his prepared statement. Years of sound budgeting, good enrollment, and positive campus at- titudes. This is an appropriate time to transfer the responsibilities of the presidency. In selecting a new president, he instructs them: I want every one of you to think of the good of the college. T he good of the college. The phrase was appropriate in October, and it is appropriate now, upon his retirement: For these words describe the entire career of Msgr. Nash. '77 19

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today and tomorrow he'd make them an associate professor. Well, that was it. The archbishop decided to accept the faculty's posi- tion and make the change. So Fr. Nash, then 41 years old, became the second president of Gannon College. T hat whole year was hell, he said, looking back on his first year as president. Well, I imagine if I over- threw the President of the United States — I would not be so proud of being President if I got it that way. Mingled with these feelings are Msgr. Nash's memories of Dr. Wehrle the teacher, Dr. Wehrle the person, and Dr. Wehrle the prime mover behind Cannon College. He's the reason Gannon is here. And he could never be played down for that. Msgr. Nash was one of Dr. Wehrle's students at Prep and Cathedral Col- lege. He didn't even have to use a book. He could go right down those pages word for word. He taught everything. What he liked best was to teach math. A favorite Dr. Wehrle math anec- dote runs thus: He works out a problem on the board, and when he gets to the end he doesn't get the answer that the book says. So he says, The book is wrong. The next day, his students ask him to do the same problem. He forgets that he just did it the day before, and this time he gets the same answer as the book. One of the students yell out, Hey, yesterday you didn't agree with that. Well, he says, the book is right today. A broad grin covers Msgr. Nash's face. You can see how the kids would grow to love a character like that. Or another time. Msgr. Nash and some fellow students are hanging around Dr. Wehrle's office at Cathe- dral College. One asks him, Hey, Doc, how about lending me a buck? So Dr. Wehrle pulls out his wallet and says, Well, there's only one buck in there — you may as well have it. This is the man Msgr. Nash wants remembered. Anyone who knew him on that basis— he could do no wrong. That first year was indeed diffi- cult. In addition to the upset caused by the changeover, the Middle States evaluation was coming up. The trustees were looking over my shoulder like I was a little boy with a pen. And that's what I mean by being tough. If we didn't pass Middle States, we'd have gone out of business. Well, Gannon made it through that crisis. And in the years that followed, Gannon positively prospered. Under Msgr. Nash's leadership, enrollment more than doubled; Beyer, Wehrle, Finegan, Zurn Science Center, and the Learning Resource Center were built; the graduate school was estab- lished; and 53 new programs on the graduate, under-graduate, and two- year level were added. T hen, around 1969, the tough years began again. The Vietnam War years — the years when protest against the war became felt at Gannon. Msgr. Nash looks back on these years with a curious mixture of bitterness and understanding. Students at that time lacked a future to loo k forward to, he said. College was a stopping point before Vietnam. And the col- lege was turned into a night club. The commitment to study wasn't there. College was a refuge. Add to this Gannon's great experi- ment in a Social Cause — an experi- ment that backfired miserably. The idea — recruit inner-city blacks and give them an education and an equal chance to succeed in life — was part of a national trend. It was conceived with the best of intentions. And it was also incredibly naive. During those years, there was a strong influx of black students from Philadelphia and New York City. They came in and we had no pro- fessional personnel to handle them. We were all ignorant. We didn't realize the depth of the problem, he said. We were demanding that they live according to our culture and they were demanding that we follow their culture, so it was a natural conflict. The black students felt out of place at Gannon — a Catholic, middle class working class college in conservative Erie, Pa. All these feelings of aliena- tion, division, and conflict were final- ly touched off— for both blacks and whites — by the incident in South Hall, when black students attacked a white. Msgr. Nash looks back on these extrememly trying days and finds the racial tensions loaded with many underlying problems. I think that in that period of time, whenever a black and a white met, it was a racial problem. Superficially. And everyone was satisfied to solve it superficially rather than going any deeper. That's why I'm saying rooted in this problem was the draft and everything con- nected with it. There certainly were other things connected with the student unrest of those years. Like the 24 credits of philosophy and theology demand- ed of every student. And a sizeable helping of paranoia — reports of Drug Suspicion Lists, R.A. spies and the like. Drinking rights and 24-hour visitation rights in the dorms — also big issues. The college never did allow 24- hour visitations or drinking rights. I'm still convinced we give more priviledges in our dorms than we should give as a Catholic college. I guess I'm old-fashioned enough that I think there should be a dormitory for the men and a dormitory for the women and if they want to meet they should meet in general areas — but not in their rooms. The theology philosophy require- ments were eventually reduced to 6 and 6 in 1974 with the introduction of the liberal studies curriculum. But other than that, Msgr. Nash said we would never budge on Gannon's Catholic commitment. I always told everybody, the day that we do not teach Catholic theology, and philosophy as a buttress for Catholic theology, I'm not going to be here. Because that's my purpose in life. If I can't achieve my purpose here, there's another place where I can. I'm not going to stick around here and be a secular institution. During those years, Msgr. Nash thinks that rebellion was the prime factor, not necessarily the specific complaints. They just did not want to be told. They wanted to develop their own thing, and do it in their own way, without any interference on anyone's part. How did he deal with the various protests, sit-ins, and demonstra- tions of solidarity — a clever phrase for mass intimidation — with the ca- joling and demanding and accusing? 18

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Notable visitors . . . Richard Nixon, on the campaign trail — 1960. Julian Bond, Georgia legislator and civil rights activist — lecture, November 1971. George McGovern, on the campaign trail- October 1972. Jimmy Carter, on the campaign trail— Octo- ber 1976. Jane Fonda, anti-war activist — lecture, spring 1972. Humbert Humphrey, on the campaign trail— 1968. 20