West Chester University - Serpentine Yearbook (West Chester, PA)

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This May, 1951, Dr. Charles S. Swope completes fifteen years of leadership as president of our college. On this occasion we would like to outline briefly the highlights of his career. Dr. Swope, a native of Pennsylvania, was graduated from the State Normal School at West Chester in 1921, obtained the A.B. degree from Dickinson College, and in 1929 earned the A.M. degree at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1941, he was granted the Pd.D. degree by Dickinson College. Yet Dr. Swope has prepared himself for our presidency in other and perhaps more important ways than by schooling alone. Of these ways direct experience in the field of education is certainly of primary importance. From the rural schools of Beavertown, Pennsylvania, where he began his teaching. Dr. Swope moved to the Pennington School for Boys, Pennington, New Jersey, later accepted the superintendency of schools at Everett, Pennsylvania, and finally returned to our college as a member of the instructional staff in 1927. Eight years later he was elevated to the Presidency of the Teachers College, an office which he has held to the present. During this time Dr. Swope has been active in civic and community work as well as in the field of education. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Community Chest and as President in 1941, a member of the Board of Directors and Vice-President of the Chester County Council of the Boy Scouts of America and as President of the Council from 1940 to 1947. Currently he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Pennington School for Boys and of the West Chester Methodist Church, a member of Schoolmen ' s Committee, of the Academy of Political and Social Science, of the American h istorical Association, the the National Education Association, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, and of Phi Kappa Sigma. Locally Dr. Swope belongs to both the X Club and the West Chester Golf and Country Club and served as a member of the Board of Directors of the West Chester Rotary Club for six years and as their President in 1940 and 1941,- he was Governor of the one hundred seventy-ninth (now the two hundred sixty-fifth) District of Rotary International for the 1947 to 1948 term of office. With Dr. Swope as its president West Chester has grown to be the largest State Teachers College of Pennsylvania as well as the largest undergraduate school of education in the Commonwealth. Showing his continued enthusiasm for our constant growth. Dr. Swope last year commissioned a student-faculty Committee on Student Welfare. The job of this committee was to investigate and to formulate recommendations for the improvement of several specific areas of student life. Now most of those recommendations are a permanent part of college policy. We have a new class dues system, a modified convocation program, a more respectful policy toward our College Criterions, an active Student Government Association, and a liberal system of cuts. The value of these innovations to our student body shows the quality of Dr. Swope ' s leadership, and it is with just such leadership that he has made West Chester an even greater institution. 17