Ursinus College - Ruby Yearbook (Collegeville, PA)

Page 26 text:

“A Man Not Soon Forgotten.” trumpeted The Ursinus Weekly when, in the Fall of 1970 Dr. Donald Lawrence Helfferich retired as President of Ursinus College. It might seem possible to members of the Class of 1984 that they have not truly encountered the late Chancellor, but his Ursinus profile is more imposing than a Mt. Rushmore carving. Every time you attended a class, sat to dinner, visited a dormitory, watched a sporting event, negotiated a scholarship, shared a forum, trafficked at the Dean’s Office, sobbed through a CMP course - you encountered an Helfferichian legacy. He bought, bartered, bulldozed, built and otherwise conducted his works of campus construction and curricular change in ways no longer very possible to the individual leader. Graduated in 1920. he returned as member of the Board of Directors by 1927, became Vice President in 1936 and President in 1958. In 1970 he was named the college’s first Chancellor. Dr. Helfferich’s list of credits is as long as his colorful, creative life. The credits are posted elsewhere. Let the RUBY show that during the senior season of the Class of 1984, two campus legends seem to have toppled to the winds of change. The gnarled, concrete-rodded end zone tree may live on — less visibly for awhile — through its cuttings. Dr. Helfferich will continue very visibly. It is easy to paraphrase Suetonius’s claim for Augustus Caesar: “He so improved Ursinus College that he justly boasted that he found it deeply in debt and left it highly endowed.” The history of Ursinus College is richly enhanced by this man of uncommon energies, wisdom, and loyalty. Milton E. Detterline