Washington College - Pegasus Yearbook (Chestertown, MD)

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r«i f% - f-... .( ' When Dr. Gibson, at 42, assumed the post of president of Washington College in 1950, the 168-year-old school had an enrollment of only ap- proximately 400 students. Of those, there were less than 100 girls. Other than East and Middle Halls, which at that time were housing girls, there was only one other women ' s dormito- ry, Reid Hall, among the nine perma- nent buildings on the 25-acre campus. There were only 163 out-of- state students on the campus, and most of those were from the neigh- boring states of Delaware, New Jer- sey and Pennsylvania. The faculty numbered 25, less than half what it is today. Major areas of study were offered in 14 disciplines. Endowment was barely $100,000, and the val- ue of the physical plant was less than $1 million.

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The presidency of a good college, as we all know, is a wearing and exacting position, with problems so numerous and varied that no man can be expected to deal with them all. College presidents, like professors, tend to be known for their specialties. Some raise money, some build buildings, some elevate the scholarly tone, some bring peace to troubled campuses, others turn places inside out. Daniel Zachary Gibson does not fit a category. When he became President in 1950, Washington College had behind it a long history of useful service to a small constituency. On that foundation the new President built. So extraordinary has been the development of the college under his leadership that to list figures about endowment and buildings and count the noses of personnel is to slight the truth. In the course of twenty years the physical face of the college has been transformed, its plan of studies totally redesigned, its faculty strengthened, its reputation greatly enhanced. The college is richer, stronger, more alive and more awake than it has ever been before. In these two decades in the life of the college there has developed a quality, eluding definition, that comes not only from the character of the President ' s public leadership, but also from something personal in his convictions and his style. He has led the college into new paths, but he has done so as if freedom and order were complementary rather than opposed, as if good manners were a good thing, as if past experience had in it something that the present might listen to. Though his grace of language may be difficult to emulate, his example has been contagious in matters as private as a love of good music, and a love of birds. More important to us than any of the measurable accomplishments of his long administration is the fact that President Gibson leaves Washington College a humane and civilized community. Nicholas Newlin

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One of President Gibson ' s first tasks was to prepare the College for a decennial revaluation of its accreditation by the Middle States Association of Colleges, involving an extensive self-study and a three-day visit and ex- amination by a group of educators representing the Association. President Gibson guided the College successfully through that evaluation and, with the challenge met, started Washington College toward a goal of acedemic excellence that has been in the forefront of its development throughout two decades. Within his first ten years he had increased the number of full-time faculty to 37, thereby creating a highly favorable faculty-student ratio of 1 to 1 1. During the Fifties he initiated a thorough evaluation of the academic program, resulting in the first major reorganization of the curriculum in this century. Excessive courses were eliminated, emphasis was placed on independent study, and the Four Course program was adopted