University of Iowa - Hawkeye Yearbook (Iowa City, IA)

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Greater University Movement What is the Greater University movement, is the natural question when mention is made of the broadening and deepening of the University spirit which has made itself so evident in the last year. Why was it started? How was it launched? What has it accom- plished! What is its future, are questions which immediately present themselves. The Greater University movement may be briefly defined as a movement originating in the student body for the bettering and enlarging of the University and the Iowa spirit. The movement arose out of a feeling among many men in all positions in the Univer- sity that there was a lack of permanent unity in Iowa spirit which should be eager at all times to better the University. The only common interest was the athletic contests and these in their very nature could do no more than stimulate a common loyalty. Especially after the close of the ' 07 foot-ball season when Iowa spirit burned the brightest of any time in years, something was needed to give it permanence and power as never before. In past times it was possible for all the students to know each other and the faculty more or less intimately. But the University has made a phenomenal growth. The student body has increased in numbers from a few hundred to thousands; the faculty from a mere handful of men to hundreds. This marvelous growth and branching out of the University has necessarily separated interests and has broken down former points of common contact. Further, the growth of the University has necessarily developed social conditions which tend away from, rather than toward unity. There are no dormitories, the students being scattered in separate houses over Iowa City. Thus the acquaintanceship of a particular man is generally limited to those in his particular line of work, or those in his neighborhood. Clubs and societies have attempted to fill this need, but their field has been limited and on every hand they have been confronted by a lack of unity and the absence of a permanent, true University spirit. The natural consequence of this state of affairs was that University life did not mean as much to many men as it should have meant. Many men came to the University with defects and prejudices due both to influences of environment and inherited disposition. Too many of these defects and prejudices are only aggravated and deepened by his Univer- sity life and he goes out from the greatest educational institution in the state without the fullest development of manhood of which he is capable. The Greater University movement is the result of the desire to remedy these condi- tions. It came into existence in response to a unanimous call to direct the latent student power into channels where it would enlarge and benefit the University in its largest and broadest sense. The answer was the formation of a Greater University Committee and the movement was formally launched by the appointment of this committee. In an assem- bly December 5, 1907, the undergraduates passed the motion for the appointment of such a committee with a unanimous ' ' aye ' ' and adopted as their slogan ' ' Always for Iowa. ' ' The committee infringes on the function of no organization connected with the University and is unique in itself. It is the only committee of its kind on record among middle western Universities. It is the mouthpiece of student ideas and the means of solving many problems which confront the University today. What has the movement accomplished as superintended by the committee? The day of the appointment of the committee it met, temporarily organized and laid plans for a monster student mass meeting in the new auditorium for the reorganization of the county club movement. The day of the meeting the auditorium was packed, the students rallying about their county standards similar to a state convention. Here the county delegations 8

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To the Greater University Her Sheen Old Gold Cradled in the Crescent Of the New University To the Greater University Committee A Trinity of Students Alumni and Faculty In Unity a Token of Power and Progress To the Greater University Cluhs Of Counties of States and of Nations Of Men of Women and of Saints To the Greater University lucky Thirteen The Colleges Eight and the Schools Five Stars in the Union of the One University Flag To the Greater University Campus Ever larger with Beauty and Buildings With its Old Capitol the Heart of City and State To the Greater University A Spirit Of Devotion to Learning Law Life and Love Of Manhood full-orbed ever shining from Iowa GEORGE E. MACLEAX. March, 1908

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temporarily organized and laid plans for reunions throughout the state so as to bring the alumni and former students in closer touch with the undergraduates and inform them of the launching of the Greater University movement. Through the medium of these county cluTxs, graduates, alumni, and undergraduates were brought into closer touch and made to feel that the University was a real, live thing, with inspirations, needs, and desires. During the holi- days over fifty counties held reunions and a great revival of the Iowa University spirit was shown. To the alumni these reunions brought home a sense of what the University really means, what its growth has been and what its needs, aims and aspirations are. The undergraduate was deeply impressed by the love the alumni showed for the Uni- versity, impressed with a feeling of joy that he was a real part of that great mass of active feelings and eeds, a real University. In arousing this spirit, this interest, this loyalty for the University, the Greater University Committee has performed a service of invaluable worth to those connected with the University and the commonwealth at large. Determined to keep the movement thoroughly before the students and alumni, at its last meeting before the holidays the Greater University Committee laid plans for giving a monster University dinner January 18, 1908. Success in every detail marked this first annual University dinner. The crowd far exceeded expectations and nearly a hundred were turned away from the door after the huge floor of the gymnasium was crowded with the closely packed tables. It was an informal, democratic social gathering, where students, alumni and faculty met on a plane of absolute equality and comradeship, and where the spirit was pri- marily the Iowa spirit. But aside from the general success of the whole affair there are even more important features to be considered. This one gathering undoubtedly established the University dinner as an annual affair. Besides this it accomplished the crystallization of this Greater Univeisity spirit which had been abroad in the school for the months preceding. It made the slogan Always for Iowa , seem something definite. It provided at least one big, informal, democratic annual gathering of the whole University where the devotion we feel for our University finds adequate expression. It brought the University together on an occasion where the University was the centre of interest in the minds of everyone; where everyone met on an equality and everyone realized that this is a University alive and full of the vital forces of young womanhood and young manhood which, rightly directed will make our University second to none. Even as the HAWKEYE goes to press the Greater University Committee are planning further steps to strengthen this great movement so well begun. Before the spring recess comes efforts are to be made to organize county clubs in the counties where no organization exists at the present time. It is the hope that this movement may be literally state wide and that in every corner of this great state the Greater University movement will be alive and vigorous, pointing to the University as the culminating point of education in the state. Another step planned by the committee to unify this great net-work of organizations is a uniform constitution which shall bind them together, with the Univer. sity as the head of the organization. Still another step is the plan for a great rally to arouse the coeds to the need of a Woman ' s Building where the girls of the University may be cared for, as befits them and where their now scattered interests may be gathered up and crystal- lized into one expression of loyalty for the University. Hand in hand with this movement is a plan for securing a grant of land from the University upon which to build a club-house for the men, where they may all meet on an equal basis in a social way for the promotion of good fellowship and the fostering of a true University spirit. It is such places, and conditions that lea-l to the forming of those friendships which make college life the beautiful thing it is. It is here that the stronger ones impart their helping influence and out of such contact a well-rounded, well-trained type of Iowa man and Iowa woman would be developed, who would be a powerful influence in any community, and through whom the real import of University training might be realized.