Memphis State University - DeSoto Yearbook (Memphis, TN)

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MSU History

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effort to draw thunder from Humboldt, Milan, Jackson, Trenton and Covington, Tenn., for the location of West Tennessee State Normal School. After the committee ' s proposal was accepted by the State Board of Education, speculation began on who would be the first president of the new Normal school. The committee chose Professor Seymour A. Mynders to receive charge of the school on June 1, 1911. Mynders was an exceptionally well organized and crafty administrator. He went to the opening of the other two Normal schools in East and Middle Tennessee and arranged to lecture. Mynders managed to turn his lectures into a recruitment for teachers to come to his school. He then rushed back to Memphis to oversee the construction of the Memphis Normal school which would be larger than the other two and therefore would take another year to complete. (continued on page 7) redesignated from Memphis State College to Memphis State University faced opposition from UT Knoxville and was a long political struggle that started in 1951. (Photo from the Mississippi Valley Collection) A Passing Parade

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The neverending line. Memphis State ' s registration process was as much of a headache in the ' 50s as it is today, except then it was conducted from building to building. Students still had to pass through tables of organizations looking for members and had to fight off that neverending urge to give it all up. (Photo from the Mississippi Valley Collection) Out of Cottonfields . . . The year that the school opened, Mynders grieved the loss of his daughter Elizabeth, who died in Chattanooga on Jan. 26, 1912, four months after her marriage. At the opening ceremonies President Mynders announced to a large gathering that 200 students had enrolled and that he expected 300 more to enroll by the completion of registration. The requirements at that time were good health, good morals and for the Normal school classes — graduation from high school or the equivalent. Mynders saw to it that everyone was helped to the fullest to meet these requirements. President Mynders made sure that all prospective students notified him of when they expected to arrive in Memphis so that he could dispatch a faculty member to the train station to meet the student. The teacher would stay and help get the student settled in while answering questions that first time visitors to Memphis always have. John Brister was the second president of West Tennessee State Normal School. He was from Petersburgh, Va. During his administration two new clubs started at West Tennessee State Normal School. The Seymour A. Mynders club and the Kappa Lambda Sigma (a girls ' club) grew out of the former Claxtonian Club. Sigma Alpha Nu appeared shortly thereafter. Then came the enormously popular Young Men ' s and Young Women ' s Christian Association. (continued on page 8) Studying in progress. The vestibule of the old Brister Library provided an atmosphere for learning. Today the same atmosphere is found on the second floor of the Brister Tower in its reserve room. (Photo from the Mississippi Valley Collection) A Passing Parade