University of Miami - Ibis Yearbook (Coral Gables, FL)

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A I lie hirst I en ears of a Out of the roar of a JjSfcJ T hurricane it was born. 3 And as the devastating wind-ball twistednorth-5 ward, the papers carried the brief but sufficient statement: The University of Miami will open as planned. The University was conceived during those exhilarating, pipe-dream days of the late lamented boom. Things were done in a grand and sumptuous manner in that get-rich-quick time, and the University was to throw open its doors with some ten million dollars in endowments behind it. The people of Miami, and especially of Coral Gables, had rallied behind the proposed University, and contributions were abounding. It was quite the thing to give half a million or so to tin institution that was to do so much to transform pioneering Miami into a cultural nuc teus. Parties and concerts and rallies were held, and the money-flushed populace was generous. It is not surprising to note the enthusiasm and lightheartedness of the founders in those days. Southern Florida has long been vaunted as one of the last remaining frontiers of the United States. In those exciting boom days. Miami must have been the twentieth-century equivalent of a mushroom mining town of the forty-nine era. Every one was crazed with the thought of more-money and plans for the erection of bigger and better buildings. The unfinished sky-scrapers, apartment houses, and hotels which were left stranded after the boom tidal wave had subsided stand, jagged upon our skyline, as mute testimony of the brain fever that ravaged this section of the country. Naturally, in those fast days, the conception of culture was badly neglected, and it was only in a comparatively few. far-sighted, and wise civic leaders that the idea that a univer- UNIVERSITY sity could give this community life a deeper meaning was nurtured. Those hardy souls fought great opposition. Miami is essentially a sport town, a vacation center.” people scoffed. The climate is more conducive to basking in the sun than to studying and scholarship.” But pioneernig skin is tough, and these men and women, with their ideal, fought on. It was in 1925. at the height of the building prosperity, that the University passed from a talking stage and was placed in the hands of a committee. A charter was obtained. In 1926 things began to move. A Board of Regents was created. It was composed of outstanding attorneys, authors, artists, jour naiists. musicians, bankers, economists, contractors. agriculturists, and financiers. The men and women who composed the first Board of Regents deserve mention here for their fortitude and vision. They were: Judge William E. Walsh. Dr. Ruth Bryan Owen. Crate D. Bowen. Frederick Zeigcn. Thomas J. Pancoast. George Merrick. Clayton Sedgwick Cooper. Mitchell D. Price. Frank B. Shutts. James M. Cox. Bertha Foster. Victor Hope. Henry S. Hubbell. Telfair Knight. Burdetter G. Lewis. John B. Orr. J. C. Penney. Charles F. Baldwin. Edgar P. Fripp. Vance W. Helm. Hamilton Michelson. and Joseph H. Adams. Then it passed from the committee stage to the action stage. On a hundred and sixty acre site, ground was broken for the administration building January 14. 1956. On February 4. the corner stone was laid with impressive ceremony. A crowd of 7.000 people assembled for this momentous instance.

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I o the CLASS of 1956: if When you arc graduated, the University will be just ten years old. In the history of the institution these first ten years will no doubt be spoken of as pioneering years devoted to the work of establishing a university in this territory. You have had a part in this pioneer work. ★ Some later classes no doubt will have the advantage of greater equipment and material resources, but there are also advantages in pioneering. You and your predecessors and colleagues have built and established with the University many of its codes, traditions, institutions, and methods. I hope that the strength and independence of character and judgment which you have developed in this pioneer work will more than make up for the lack of material resources which we would have liked to place at your disposal. if We wish for you great success in carrying out all of your high resolves and purposes. B. F. ASHE PRESIDENT

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THE FIRST TEN YEARS of A U N I V E R S I T Y Judge William E. Walsh, member of the Board of Regents, faced the future: Hard upon the heels of a retreating wilderness we are today planting the institution of learning, an event which will loom large a hundred years hence, when other things you and I have done will be forgotten. Into this high resolve, extravagant plans, and great dreams whirled the intruder from the southern seas. Upon the heels of the devastating winds came the pricking of the boom bubble with tlx subsequent depression that turned rich men into poor ones — and rich schools into poor schools. The story of the next ten years is not to be obscured in secret shame. It should be exalted with pride of achievement. The tale of how the leaders of our school, greatly handicapped by general lack of money and by deflated promises and pledges which could no longer be fulfilled, dug in and nursed the baby university on its way amidst the greatest of adversities, and the memory of how these same leaders clung tenaciously to their high purposes in the face of the lashing of the worst depression our country has ever known, cannot but excite with pride those who turn, now. and pause to look back over those first ten years. It is a story of courage and determination in the face of discouragement and difficulties that would have floored lesser men. Facing the fact, realistically, that endow ments had vanished into thin air. the heads of the school abandoned temporarily the site originally projected for the University and moved into the Anastasia Hotel. The building. at that time, was nothing but an incom-pleted skeleton, and the school opening a bare six weeks off! Hordes of workmen and carpenters were turned loose. I hey fell over one another in their frantic attempt to whip things into shape for the seven hundred students who were waiting opportunity for en- trance at the beginning of the school year. The beat of the hammer and the hum of the saw were still echoing down the halls when classes began in October. 1926. The seven hundred students represented 14 states. Seventy per cent, were from Florida, sixty per cent, from Miami. Four hundred were enrolled in the School of Music, two hundred and fifty in the School of Liberal Arts, and fifty were freshmen in the School of Law. The faculty of all schools aggregated sixty. Those who were present at the birth year of our school look back now in half -humorous recollection upon the trials and hurdles that confronted them. The side walks were not yet laid, and the patio became a slushy sea of mud after each rain. The school had less than one-half of the equipment it now possesses. Soon, however, things were functioning more or less smoothly. On October 19th. the first social function of the school was held with the regents as hosts at a reception given in the Coral Gables Country Club for the faculty and the students. The football team, which had been quickly whipped into shape by H. B. Buck, then coach, was on its way to an undefeated season. The Footballers had been spontaneously and defiantly dubbed ■■Hurricanes. The Student Council had been formed and had passed its first law. a ruling prohibiting students from smoking in the corridors. On November 4th. the first University section appeared in the Riviera. This was the grandfather of the Miami Hurricane. On November 3rd Dr. Ashe, who had been executive secretary, was unanimously chosen President of the University of Miami. He has filled this office with distinction and dignity. Fraternities were established. The University was finding difficulty in locating living quarters and work for students. In those early days, the upperclassmen were greatly troubled