University of Nebraska Omaha - Tomahawk / Gateway Yearbook (Omaha, NE)

Page 11 text:

BOARD OF REGENTS Chairman MR. FRANK T. B. MARTIN Vice-Chairman MR. HIRD STRYKER Secreta ry DR. FLOYD J. MURRAY Treasurer MR. W. DALE CLARK MRS. JAMES E. BEDNAR MR. DE EMMETT BRADSHAW MR. H. A. JACOBBERGER MR. A. D. MAJORS COLONEL GEORGE A. SKINNER

Page 10 text:

DEDICATION THIS, the second volume of the TOMAHAWK of the Municipal University of Omaha, we dedicate to our Board of Regents, through whose combined efforts our goal of a more adequate university has been realized.

Page 12 text:

THE OLD UNIVERSITY A GROUP OF PUBLIC -SPIRITED CITIZENS, motivated by the desire to establish a non-sectarian and co educational institution of higher hberal, professional, and technical training in the metropolitan area, created a Board of Trustees in the summer of 1908 and caused it to be incorporated as the University of Omaha in the fall of that same year. Public approval was so aroused that the University immediately purchased a tract of land known as the Redick Reserve in North Omaha; Mrs. M. O. Maul donated the John Jacobs Memorial Gym nasium in remembrance of her son ; and Mr. George A. Joslyn erected Joslyn Hall. In these two large buildings a Collegiate department was established with a well-rounded cur- riculum. The success of the enterprise vindicated the hopes and aims of its promoters, until now more than fifteen hundred students are enrolled in its regular, extension, and summer sessions. The demands upon the university made during the 1920 ' s by eager students and ,he necessary standards of education involved such a financial burden that those interested in the institution and its continued value in the community conceived that its perpetuity must be made possible through the organization of a Municipal University, financed from public funds. To that end, the legislature of Nebraska passed a bill in 1928 authorizing cities of the metropolitan class to vote on the question of the establishment and maintenance of municipal universities, and the people of Omaha, on May 6 of that year, levied a one-mill tax for the support and development of the Municipal University of Omaha. Dr. Daniel E. Jenkins was the able leader of the Univer- sity for the first eighteen years, ending in 1926. Then followed Dr. Karl F. Wettstone and Mr. Earnest W. Emery in the presidency. During the year immediately preceding the opening of the new municipal school, the University of Omaha was administered by Dr. W. Gilbert James; then the late Dr. William E. Sealock was called to the presidency from the University of Nebraska. After the municipalization of the University of Omaha, the late Dr. Sealock, with exceeding courage, initiated a new plan of instruction and did much to add to the University ' s prestige. Some thirty new instructors were added to the faculty, and over 22,000 volumes were added to the library. But Dr. Sealock ' s greatest dream, that of a new spacious campus for the university in a quiet neighborhood, was not realized when he died in the summer of 1935.