Tag Archives: University Trustees

University Studies established (p. 327)

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Sciences, and University Studies (embracing the core courses). Each was administered by a Director, subordinate to the Dean of the Faculty, for whom the five directors served as an advisory group.

Under Mr. Case the role of faculty as a deliberative body for discussing and deciding academic affairs was revived. Instead of meeting regularly only three times each year, as had been customary in the ’30’s, the faculty convened once a month. As a kind of “academic senate” there was the Educational Policy Committee which was set up in 1947 following the discharge of the Committee on the Post-War College after its report had been adopted. The membership included the President as chairman, the deans and some other administrative officers, and division directors, all ex officio, and elected faculty members who constituted the majority. Two ad hoc faculty committees, one on the Humanities and the Self-Study Committee, conducted extensive investigations of the curriculum and its possible revisions and of the efficiency of administrative and instructional procedures and made several recommendations, some of which were implemented. Likewise, four separate visiting committees of outside experts, invited to the campus in 1958, and 1960-’62, to examine the work of the Divisions, made helpful suggestions for improvements.

Closer relations between the faculty and Board of Trustees were promoted by the Faculty Conference Committee, first appointed in 1954 as a Liaison Committee, to consult with the Trustee Committee on Academic Affairs. It was useful in supplementing the President’s presentation to the full Board of faculty views and needs.

The faculty’s economic and organizational status improved greatly under Mr. Case’s administration. By 1960-61, the average salary for full-time members in all ranks reached more than $9,000. Fringe benefits, in addition, included the annuity and group insurance programs and payments of medical insurance premiums. In 1959 it was possible to revive the program of sabbatical leaves which had been in abeyance since 1929. Six months with full salary or a year on half salary was arranged to enable professors to travel, carry on research, and restore some of the energy expended over the preceding six years. Growing out of Post-War Committee discussions came a statement on academic freedom,tenure, and promotions adopted by Trustees and faculty in 1948-49.

Out of faculty and community discussions of the problems of the

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Posted in Chapter 15, p. 327, The Case Administration 1942-1962, timeline

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Office of the registrar established (p. 218)

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his friendly and conciliatory nature, his thorough knowledge of the institution and its history, his wide acquaintance with the alumni, all contributed to make him a sagacious and acceptable leader.”

Other changes included: printing the Minutes of Trustees’ Meetings so that each member might have copy; holding two Trustees’ Meetings each year, instead of one, the second to be in New York in December; and electing members of the Board for five-year terms. This modern and efficient approach it was hoped would stimulate genuine Trustee interest in University affairs.

For five years the Trustees searched without success for a president. Various prominent Baptists turned them down because they disliked the poorly defined joint operations of the University and the Baptist Education Society and sensed trouble because the president’s authority over the Seminary was not spelled out. Their objections were especially pertinent in a period in which there was considerable unrest and turmoil in theological circles.

At the outset of the search for a president, the faculty urged the twenty-seven-year old James C. Colgate to accept the office. No doubt flattered, he modestly declined to follow in the footsteps of his demi-god, Ebenezer Dodge. He felt he could be of greater service as a Trustee and time proved him correct. In many ways he was President pro tem and, as such, kept in close touch with Dean Andrews and the faculty committee and with the students. As a means, rather unusual in the 1890’s, of enlisting undergraduate support he furnished the Madisonensis with lengthy accounts of Trustee meetings. Furthermore, he came to the campus as often as he could and talked to the students about his responsibilities and his hopes for the University while, at the same time, frankly admitting he was not much older than they and would like to join in their fun. Under his prodding the Executive Committee made a thorough investigation of the University’s daily operations and called for detailed reports from its officers. In 1892 the office of Registrar was established to consolidate and maintain efficient and complete records of student grades and absences; the duties of the Registrar were combined with those of the Librarian until 1898. James C. Colgate’s influence can be detected also in the reorganization of procedures in the Treasurer’s Office and in forming in 1892 a Trustees’ Finance Committee to have custody of the University’s securities and to direct the investment of its funds. Mr.

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Posted in Chapter 11, Colgate in the 1890's, p. 218, timeline

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p. 177 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

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Samuel Colgate, p177

he served as President from 1861 until his death in 1897. Four years younger than his brother, he and James were very fond of one another and shared many interests, denominational and philanthropic and also artistic and horticultural. Samuel lived in Orange, New Jersey, where he had an estate called Seven Oaks after the village in Kent, England, associated with the Colgate family. He had flower and vegetable gardens, a conservatory, and greenhouses and he and Mrs. Colgate often had their big red brick house filled with guests.

Both James B. and Samuel Colgate, following the precedent set by their father, sought to interest their sons in the University. The first saw his son, James C., become a University Trustee in 1888, while Richard, the eldest of Samuel’s sons, was made an Education Society Trustee in 1889. Subsequently, Richard’s brothers, Sidney and Russell, joined him on the Society’s Board and Sidney, Russell and a fourth brother, Austen, became members of the University Board.

Along with Dr. Dodge, important figures on the campus in adminis-

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Posted in Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era, Chapter 9, p. 177

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p. 140 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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Chapter VIII – RECOVERY AND EXPANSION 1850-1869

As the embers of the Removal Controversy cooled, the friends of Madison University turned their energy to repairing the serious damage which that intense and bitter conflict had done. Under Stephen W. Taylor’s vigorous presidency, 1851-56, they achieved for it a large measure of recovery. His successor, George W. Eaton, who served from 1856 to 1868, though not so strong a leader, brought the institution through the Civil War years with comparatively slight dislocation. During Eaton’s tenure also, resources and facilities so expanded that the university in 1869, under President Ebenezer Dodge, had every expectation of prosperity and usefulness greater than it had experienced during its first half century.

In the interim between August 1850, when the Anti-Removalists gained control of the University and the Education Society’s Boards, and Taylor’s assumption of office a year later, Professors Eaton and Spear acted as temporary executives. The one “kept his hand upon the helm and his eye upon the starless heavens, the other stood guard over the treasury and cargo.” Final authority and responsibility, of course, rested with the Trustees. Professor Spear, Secretary of both Boards, complained that the Removalist Trustees delayed resigning until August, 1850, even though the injunction against removal had been granted three months previously, because until they should do so and permit the friends of Hamilton to have control, no arrangements for the next year could be made.

The new Trustees, all solid, substantial business men from Hamilton or vicinity, represented the conservative element among the Baptists loyal to Madison University. They and their associates could be expected to perpetuate it with little deviation from the pattern followed hitherto. The President of the Board from 1850 to 1864 was Henry

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p. 135 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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capital. Brown and Judd had tapped a reservoir of emotion.

The transition of control in the University Board from the Rochester supporters to the Anti-Removalists was another dramatic episode of the 1850 commencement week. Thanks to the fact that Removal men had been appointed to vacancies, friends of Hamilton failed to constitute a quorum. In case the Removalists should refuse to meet, the University would be forced to suspend operations. That a quorum of any kind could be gathered after August, 1850, seemed improbable.

When the Trustees met on the 19th they were three short, and it was not until their third session, the afternoon of the 20th, that a quorum of nine was present. Knowing that a committee of Anti­-Removalists was prepared to negotiate with the Board, five Removalists present agreed to resign and resolved:

 

 

that we pledge ourselves to elect substitutes on the nomination of Dea. Wm. Cobb, of Hamilton, provided a written pledge be first given by responsible individuals, that the professors who shall resign shall be paid in full on or before the 10th of September next, and that the bill of the Legal Committee at Albany … be paid by 1st of November next.*

 

 

The condition meant that friends of Hamilton, already staggering under a heavy deficit and hard-pressed to raise the endowment, would immediately have to secure $2,700 for faculty salaries and $265 for lawyers’ fees incurred by the Removalists. Though willing to pay the salaries, they regarded the legal expense as unjust and declined the condition. As the Board was about to dissolve without having surrendered control to the Hamiltonians, Professor Spear volunteered to assume responsibility for providing the money and Deacon Cobb, Alvah Pierce and three others joined in signing the bond. The Board accepted the document and six members withdrew one by one as Anti-Removalists took their seats. The crisis was passed and it was now possible to proceed with arrangements for carrying on the work of the University.

The newly constituted Board turned at once to the most urgent matter, that of reorganizing the faculty. Professors Maginnis, Conant, Raymond, A. C. Kendrick, and Richardson had resigned two days previously to accept appointments at Rochester, leaving only Eaton

*Colgate University, Board of Trustees, Minutes, Aug. 20, 1850.

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p. 128 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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passage. The Removal Act of April 3, 1848, still stood.

Morale on the campus had rapidly deteriorated among faculty and students early in 1849 when repeal seemed a possibility and removal prevented. Both groups were anxious that the question be settled as soon as possible so that they could make plans for next year. Professor Eaton’s exertions in Albany and elsewhere, his Removalist colleagues regarded as most reprehensible. They censured him not only in faculty meeting but also publicly, in connection with Dr. Kendrick’s funeral sermon.

During the last years of his life Dr. Kendrick had become especially fond of Eaton, no doubt because both worked strenuously to prevent removal. Before his death in September, 1848, Kendrick asked that Eaton preach his funeral sermon, but it happened that Eaton was absent from the village when he died and Kendrick’s friend, the venerable Alfred Bennett of Homer, gave the discourse. Kendrick’s request, however, was known by several students, many of them having taken turns watching at night by his bedside, and, out of respect for the departed “Father in Israel,” the Students Association invited Professor Eaton to deliver a memorial sermon.

The Remavalist members of the faculty, apparently jealous of Eaton’s popularity with the students, feared he would make the sermon a vehicle for Anti-removalist propaganda, especially since it would be published and widely circulated. When the students 1earned that Professor Maginnis would give the sermon, “the deep waters were stirred,” as one wrote, and “The Great Rebellion” soon developed. Despite protest meetings and petitions Maginnis preached the sermon. The professors, viewing the students’ behavior as a revolt against authority, designated Dr. Conant to inform them of the reasons for faculty policy. At the end of his two-hour “exhaustive exposition” the thunder of feet and prolonged hisses drowned his voice. Disciplinary measures and even expulsions failed to restore an atmosphere of study, and soon some students transferred to other colleges and universities.

When the University Trustees met in special session in Utica in April 1849, to accelerate measures for removal they gave particular attention to the disturbances and, to check Professor Eaton’s activities, though not mentioning him by name, they resolved:

 

 

that whilst this Board would not deny to the Faculty individually the free exercise and expression of their private judgment, yet the relations of the Faculty to the Board and the interests of the University

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p. 120 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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showed great energy in collecting endowment subscriptions. Dr. Kendrick, now definitely aligned with them because he had been alienated by the bitterness of the Wyoming Address, wrote numerous letters soliciting support. His appeals had unique poignancy because they came from a bed of pain. He informed one graduate, “I find myself wasting away. I know not that I shall live to see the removal question settled. I trust God will order it right. Help me with your prayers.”

Professor Eaton, the most active of the collecting agents, traveled widely to speak in the churches. He had anticipated that the Removalists might try to confine the money-raising campaign to Central New York or to hamper it in other ways and his apprehensions proved well-grounded. He had scarcely expressed them when the Madison Observer, published at the neighboring village of Morrisville, printed a communication entitled “Shall Hamilton village be endowed?” The author, identified as John S. Holme, a member of the Senior Class, asserted that the people of Central New York had no obligation to contribute since the principal benefits would accrue to Hamilton. Professor Eaton made a heated reply and the editor of the Democratic Reflector flayed the student for being “forgetful of his proper place.”

Week after week the Reflector, the Baptist Register and the Recorder were filled with charges and counter-charges. Professors Raymond and A. C. Kendrick, writing under pseudonyms, urged against contributing to the endowment, while Professor Eaton, signing himself variously as “Christianus” or “an Agent,” undertook to meet their arguments. By August, when the Hamiltonians began to despair of raising the $50,000 within the time allowed, the editor of the Reflector pleaded with the villagers to cover the deficit with a bond. He asserted that, with the University gone, all business would be paralyzed.

The week of August 10-17, 1848, was the most turbulent period of the Removal Controversy. Excitement reached an intensity compara­ble to the temperature which prevailed on those hot summer days as clouds of dust, stirred by the carriages hurrying along dry roads, settled in the front parlors newly made ready for guests who had come to Hamilton for the Education Society’s annual meeting and the commencement. Foremost in the mind of everyone was the future location of the University, an issue overshadowing all else, even the orations of the graduating class.’

Attention focused first on the deliberations of the University Trus-

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