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In the fall of 1944, the institution had many inefficient
procedures. Anyone who worked for the college had to line up each
month to sign the payroll, sometimes waiting in line for an hour.
The number of wasted hours must have come at tremendous cost! Lines
were also a hindrance for students paying dormitory bills, and
registration for classes was a two-day hassle. Although faculty
members demanded a role in selecting a new president, the regents
sent only two of their members and the registrar to the East to
seek a new president who might modernize the college and revise
some of its antiquated procedures.
Dr. Wilson Compton of the famous Compton family became president
on January 1, 1945. Compton was a businessman—he had no experience
in educational administration. But through his family, he was very
familiar with the academic world. Compton had studied the Pacific
Northwest, and he believed technology and industrial development
were necessary to create a fine educational institution to be of
service to the state and the region. He recognized that many
changes needed to be made at the college to overturn the
traditional autocratic organization that had developed over many
years. As I learned more about his years of service, I thought he
was like a mother going to clean up an impossible child’s
room—where to start? A mother might just have to dump everything in
the middle of the room and start sorting—throw this away, fix this,
and put this in a drawer. Compton did a great deal of this through
his Committee of 40—a faculty group who studied the whole college
and all of the organizations and various policies and procedures in
place, and with whom Dr. Compton frequently consulted over the
years as changes were made on the campus. Many of the changes
brought about under Dr. Compton were very beneficial, and most are
still part of the University structure.
Compton faced a tremendous task, as veterans returned to campus
following the end of World War II, and more housing and classrooms
were needed immediately. Being the businessman that he was, he
efficiently acquired the needed temporary buildings and modified
them for classrooms or dormitories. He accommodated the increase in
enrollment from 2,000 in 1945 to 7,890 in 1947-48—a figure that
remained the record enrollment until the fall of 1960—through
implementation of the IBM402 Tabulator and its keypunched cards.
Change always creates enemies, and Compton offended both faculty
and regents with many of his arbitrary changes. He came at a time
when WSC needed his skills, but he felt compelled to resign in
September 1951. Dr. William Pearl from the Institute of Technology
served as acting president for about six and a half months until
President C. Clement French came on April 1, 1952.
There’s no doubt in my mind what kind of president the regents
were seeking in late 1951. They needed a person of stature who
could continue the high standards of WSC and yet bring about
peace—get faculty and administrators working together once
again—someone to heal the wounds. They certainly found such a man
in Clement French. He always told everyone he came on April Fools
Day, left on Halloween in 1966, and was never inaugurated. That is
the kind of leader he was—one with a great sense of humor, a
sincere appreciation of the value of every employee, great
organizational abilities, and tremendous sense of fairness. He
always emphasized the importance of each individual in the
particular job he or she had at the University. He credited his
wife, Helen, with much of his success, said the presidency was a
two-person job, and, certainly, when the two of them entered a
room, there was an atmosphere of respect—it was obvious that the
leaders were present. When he retired, he asked that the
scholarship fund established in his honor be named “The Helen B.
and C. Clement French Scholarship.
President French had to work extremely hard when he first came
in order to heal the wounds and to unite faculty, administrators,
and staff into a cohesive and effective group. He was always the
first to say that he was not perfect, that no man or woman is
omniscient. He said he would know when he should retire—that every
decision he had to make would create an enemy or two, for problems
that came to him had not been resolved at a lower level. He always
tried to make decisions in the best interests of the University, no
matter who disagreed, but he said he had to retire before the
number of those who opposed him exceeded the number of those who
still supported him.
The developments under Dr. French were tremendous. Enrollment
grew from 5,890 to 11,691; many more dormitories were built. The
nuclear reactor was installed, and many academic buildings were
constructed. The Honors Program was started, the Computing Center
was established, and the first academic program in computer science
in the Pacific Northwest was offered. The association with West
Pakistan University started in 1954, and KWSU-TV went on the air.
Dr. French even got the University of Washington to help sponsor
the bill to change the name of the college to Washington State
University in 1959.
In the early 1960s, the student unrest at Berkeley started. Dr.
French said this unrest would, undoubtedly, spread to other
campuses and that he was too old to cope with that. He recommended
that the regents find someone to replace him, who had a sincere
interest in young people, who would understand students, and who
had the gift of working successfully with them. French retired in
the fall of 1966, but a new president had not yet been
selected.
The regents appointed Academic Vice President Wallis Beasley to
serve as acting president. He was not just an acting president—he
kept WSU moving on the path Dr. French had set. Having served as a
faculty member, department chair, and vice president, he understood
WSU very well and was respected by his faculty colleagues. He
always said that making no decision was the worst way for an
administrator to manage—a decision at least moved the institution
in one direction and did not permit chaos to fill the void, and a
direction could be altered by a later decision if it was deemed
necessary. I’ll never forget the time that WSU was looking for a
new football coach for the third year in a row. Some faculty
members came to Beasley to complain that the University was not
following proper advertising procedures for a new coach, and
Beasley practically threw the faculty members out of his office,
shouting that everyone in the world knew that the University was
again seeking a coach!
On July 1, 1967, Dr. Glenn Terrell, whose degrees were in child
psychology, became president. Terrell was a “people” president. He
did not enjoy paperwork, and one of the smartest decisions he made
in his first year was to have Dr. Beasley serve as executive vice
president to keep much of the paperwork moving and to manage many
internal affairs. That gave Terrell more time to interact with
students. We never made an appointment in the office earlier than
9:30 in the morning or 2:30 in the afternoon, because Terrell
walked from his home across the campus to the office—and if he met
a student who had a problem or who just wanted to visit, he took as
much time was needed.
Student unrest during the years 1969-71 occupied much of Dr.
Terrell’s time. I often watched him take a group of maybe 40 to 50
angry students into our conference room and spend time with them on
whatever was upsetting them. I then watched the students leave in a
much more orderly manner, talking among themselves about what a
great president he was, because he had been willing to listen.
There were some violent incidents, some sit-ins in the
administration building over the Vietnam War, and a strike—the
third one for the institution—but WSU came through that period
without any loss of life. The regents had selected him as a
president who could take WSU through the confrontations that were
expected, and no one could have handled the tense moments any
better than Dr. Terrell did!
In spite of all the tension and stress of these years of unrest,
Terrell always said that the eruption of Mount St. Helens created
the worst management problem he had every encountered, and I
certainly agree. I shall never forget the hours he and I spent on
the phone with angry parents from the west side of the state who
wanted their students to be excused to go home. Those parents did
not realize there was no way their students could get out of our
area for most of a week and their students were very safe in their
living groups. The University of Washington did not help with their
daily press releases on the dangers of breathing the ash. Our
registrar once said that the problems created by Mount St. Helens
and the subsequent withdrawal of many students from their classes
would haunt the University for 60 years.
There were tremendous changes on the campus during Dr. Terrell’s
18 years. Both the 50,000th student in 1971 and the 100,000th in
1983 graduated. A million-dollar grant from the Kellogg Foundation
created the Partnership for Rural Improvement. Dr. Orville Vogel
received the National Medal of Science for his research on wheat.
The Small Business Development Center was established. Terrell
supported research activities by both graduate and undergraduate
students. The Research and Technology Park was envisioned. The WSU
Foundation was brought into being. Once again, the football team,
in 1981, lost 38 to 36 to Brigham Young University in the Holiday
Bowl in San Diego! The old Cow Barn was converted to a classy
Alumni Center. The Intercollegiate Center for Nursing Education was
established in Spokane. The stadium was destroyed, and a $1,000,000
fund-raising campaign supported its rebuilding. The WAMI medical
education program was started. The Coliseum opened. The WOI
veterinary medicine program started. Educational services were
provided in Jordan. WSU celebrated its 90th birthday, and Dr.
Terrell appointed the Centennial Committee to begin planning for
the 1990 Centennial Celebration. Enrollment increased from 12,575
in 1967 to over 19,000.
Dr. Terrell will always be known as the Student’s President—he
is still beloved by thousands of students, and the Glenn Terrell
Friendship Mall on the campus is a most appropriate tribute to him.
The regents, once again, had selected a president in 1967 who was
perfect for his time, and served successfully for 18 years. All of
his regents honored him with a very special dinner in Spokane on
June 28, 1985, as he retired, and the WSU Foundation established
the Glenn Terrell Presidential Scholarship, which has brought many
highly qualified students to WSU in his honor.
Gen DeVleming was secretary to
Presidents French, Beasley (interim), and Terrell. She also recalls
wiener roasts at the Compton residence.
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