University of Minnesota - Gopher Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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BURTON: TRYING ADMINISTRATION In 1916 Vincent got tired of reform, and headed hack cast to direct the Rockefeller foundation. His successor was Marion Burton. Burtons administration was a trying one. If he had remained at Smith college, where he had been president, he would have saved himself a lot of headaches. World War I was changing the face of the campus. Students and faculty alike were leaving the campus for military duty. The Medical school lost 57 professors. Burton took five pages of his first presidential report to explain why so many of the faculty had disappeared. The general atmosphere on campus was one of apathy. Nobody showed any apathy, however, when it came to investigations of loyalty among faculty members. Those in the German department came in for special scrutiny, but the biggest row came over Professor William Schaper, head of the political science department. Schaper was a pacifist by nature who had chosen to ignore the war effort. But he showed some fighting spirit when called before the investigation board. The interview went badly. The board would not confront him with specific charges and consequently Schaper refused to answer any questions. The meeting broke up in a Hurry of tempers and Schaper was fired. The incident developed into a scandal that was to troublesome minds at the University for 20 years. In 1937 the case was hashed over and Schaper was reinstated as professor emeritus and offered $5,000 for his lost years. Fred B. Snyder, the only Regent left from the original board cast the lone dissenting vote. Two years after the end of the war Burton, sick and exhausted, resigned the presidency. Lotus I). Coffman took over. Coffman’s 18-year administration was marked by some great advances in tbe educational field, a tremendous rise in enrollment and a drop in revenue. Child welfare nursery school, 1920s i Construction of Northrop Memorial luditorium, 1927-1928 COFFMAN: BUGLES AND PLACARDS The drop in revenue stemmed from the depression and from a budget-slashing program of the state legislature. Students went up in arms over one of the more drastic-proposed budget cuts, and held a great demonstration. Four thousand students, equipped with bugles, drums and placards, rallied at the north end of Folwell hall. The legislators decided to increase the budget. During the twenties a minor and certainly quiet revolution was taking place on campus. There was aroused interest in student achievement. Dean John Black Johnston of the Arts college wished to discover what made students Hunk out of school. This was by no means an academic-question. for students were flunking out of school in droves. Sixty per cent of the total University enrollment were freshmen. Johnston devised standards and tests and at last came up with the recommendation that a special college be added to the University to take care of the bottom 25 per cent. Out of this plan grew our present day General College. The smoldering problem of academic freedom — freedom of qualified experts to teach what they please—blew up suddenly over the question of evolution. A large outside group, led by the Rev. William B. Riley, screamed it was immoral to teach evolution to college youths and that there was no place for monkeys in human history. An anti-evolution bill was introduced in the legislature, but President Coffman demanded that the University be allowed to control its own destinies. The bill was killed in the senate, 55 to 7. Pag 23

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1920-1938 Lulus Della Coffman 1928-1941 Guy Slanlon Lord 1941-1945 Walter C. Coffey 1945- I a met Lewis Morrill AFFER MEDICAL REFORM: A FASTER TEMPO FOR TIIE CAMPUS At a time when private “medical schools in the state were producing an alarming number of quacks, the University School of Medicine was Ixginning to act like an adult. In 1X92 the school curriculum span was lengthened to eight months and was extended to include 10 lectures in embryology and 32 in pathology. Two years later, the Regents, inspired by a more than customary vision, made-medicine a four-year course. Within a decade of Northrop’$ resignation, the University Medical school had absorbed all the private schools around the state. No one wanted Cyrus Northrop to resign the presidency, except, perhaps, Cyrus Northrop. He was well loved and honored. Still, his second letter of resignation was accepted in 1909. His successor was George Edgar Vincent. With Vincent's arrival the curtain fell on Northrop’s re- laxed, genial scene. Vincent was a reformer and a businessman, and he Stepped up the tempo of campus life. Though he was unjustly considered by some to be “aristocratic and arrogant, he succeeded in gaining the confidence of both the student body and the faculty. As one-professor said, he was a professor's ideal of a president.’' Vincent’s own ideal of what a University president should be. called for “. . . a man who is radical in ideals but strong and conservative in action, a man who knows that the world has changed and changed rapidly in the past few years and who is capable of leading the new order. His aim was to build a faculty capable of original research and of producing “high-minded citizens. “The University campus, lie said, “must be as wide as the boundaries of the Commonwealth. VINCENT: NOT SO GENTLE REFORM The 47-year-old Vincent immediately set out to make some necessary changes. The Law school had previously been a sanctuary for football players and “intellectual misfits. Vincent strengthened the teaching staff and curriculum and made it into a bona fide place of education. Next he looked over the situation in the Medical school, and saw that it was greatly in need of qualified, full-time teachers. I Ic promptly asked for the resignations of the entire staff. This was by no means a mass suicide, it was merely a complete reorganization, for most of the original start were reappointed. This time, however, teachers were hired on the strength of lour basic principles: character, “teaching ability, “prestige . . . indicated in pari by contributions to science, and “past service to the college.’’ Vincent also revamped the Graduate school (under the dcanship of Guy Stanton Ford) the Arts college and the College of Education. In less than a decade he hail turned the University upside down and then set it on its feet again. Presidents Fuiwcll, Ford anil Coffman at IJ nary dedication, 1924 P«3c 22

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FORD: NO CASH, NEW WAR THREATS lun ton hall library, 192i DEPRESSION: HILLS AND VALLEYS It was during the thirties that the Institute of Technology was born. The old College of Engineering had been having a bad time up to that point. It was suffering from a tremendous turnover of personnel, acute lack of space and inferior equipment. It was also lacking in prestige. The first dean of IT was Samuel Colville Lind, who came to Minnesota in 1926. He found his new college was made up of academic hills and valleys—some departments, like that of chemistry, were strong, others were weak. Lind and those who followed him succeeded first in equalizing the various departments, then in raising them all to a more respectable standard of performance. This was the depression era, and, like almost every other institution, the University was having financial difficulties. The number of student loan applications rose alarmingly. Funds ran out. Coffman asked the legislature for $100 million and got only two-thirds of it. When things were blackest, the Federal Emergency Relief administration saved the day with a plan that extended to all non-profit collegiate institutions. The project was a glorified relief program whereby federal students were assigned to work and study at the University. The move helped relieve the unemployment situation and also raised funds for the University. At the start of the academic year in 1958 President ('off-man died. The Regents asked Guy Stanton Ford, who had been filling in as acting president during Coffman's illness, to continue as acting president until a permanent one could be found. Ford refused. Then they asked him to take the presidency as a [KTmancnt job. He accepted. With another war on the horizon, the new president was naturally reluctant to begin any long range experiments. But he did manage to get the business department reor ganized. The School of Business gained a lot of ground when its head, W. E. Hotchkiss, lured Alvin Hansen and F. B. Garver away from Brown university. The two men were unlike in temperament and method — Garver was slow and thorough, Hansen was erratic and brilliant; but they complemented each other perfectly and contributed much both to economic literature anti to the University School of Business. The story of Journalism’s rise at the University roughly parallels that of the Business school. In the thirties journalism put new emphasis on professional training and revised its curriculum in order to make a greater appeal to the serious-minded student. Journalism was promoted from a department to a school in 1942, only two years after it moved into its present quarters at Murphy hall. Home economics lab class, 1921