Kent State University - Chestnut Burr Yearbook (Kent, OH)

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-• £ -M. - - ►( - } •►- y »- ►- KENT STATE Its Past.. Its Present.. Its Future. TN the spring of 1910 a legislative act was passed by the General Assembly of Ohio ■ that authorized establishing two normal schools. Governor Harmon appointed a com- mission to select the site of the schools, and in December of that year Kent was chosen to be the home of one of these new institutions. Early the following year, 1911, the first board of trustees was appointed, appropriations were made for two buildings, and Dr. J. E. McGilvery was elected the first president of Kent State Normal School. The first years were not easy. Classes held in the spring of 1913 met in tents on the front campus because the buildings were not yet com- pleted. President McGilvery had his office downtown above the bank, and it bore no re- semblance to the fine office the present executive of Kent now occupies. It was bare, and cold and Dr. McGilvery says, . . . so many holes in the floor you didn ' t dare drop a pencil.

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THE 1944 CiicslTlut Btirr The Story of Kent State University In Nineteen Forty-Four, by the Student Body. Recorded by Jane McDowell, Editor . . . Herbert Koehn, Business Manager.

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That first fall enrollment reached just 291, and while summer classes attracted great numbers, the regular session increased slowly and by 1927 was just 600. Since that date the number of students increased rapidly, reached its peak in 1940 and began a sharp decline with the outbreak of the war in 1941. William S. Kent had donated the land to the state where the school was erected. In 1915, with the addition of a four year course, it became Kent State Normal College. Then, by legislative authority to grant Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science de- grees, it became Kent State College in 1929. With a College of Liberal Arts as well as a College of Education, six years later, in 1935, a College of Business Administration was added, and under Governor Martin L. Davey the name changed to Kent State University — authorizing the granting of Master of Arts degrees. Soon after this time Kent gained the reputation as the fastest growing University in the country. Social life flourished and things like Campus Night, Top Hop, Homecoming, and Sadie Hawkins Day were bright spots on everyone ' s calendar. But this era of good time was comparatively short lived for on December 8, 1941 students listened grimly to radios as President Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war. Within less than two years Kent became the 336th College Training Detachment of the Army Air Corps. Smaller classes and off-campus living, no inter-collegiate athletics, or fraternities were evi- dences of the change. Now we are looking forward to tomorrow — a large program of building expansion, a campus where once more that carefree life can flour- ish, and where the University can grow to something bigger than any of our dreams.