4Wr it z rnx 411 a t EXTRA PRICE FIVE CENTS ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, MONDAY, MAY 21, 1951 SIX PAGES --I * r * * * 4> Ruthven Era Distinguished By Expansion 1 To End 22 Years: Retires June 30 By PAUL -BRETLINGER Daily City Editor President Alexander G. Ruth- ven will retire from his duties on June 30 this year, after a 22 year period of leadership during a ser- ies of world crises. His administration has been marked by tremendous physical expansion of the University, ac- companied by important adminis- trative reforms. All this was brought about amid the trials of depression, war and cold war. PERHAPS THE most noticeable of President Ruthven'snaccom- plishments has been the mammoth construction program which has completely changed the face of the campus since 1929. Imagine if you can a campus without the West and East Quads; without Stockwell, and Mosher- Jordan Halls; without the Rack- Sham Building, Burton Tower, the Health Service, the Administra- tion Building and the business ad- ministration school building. None of these buildings were around when President Ruthven was in- stalled on Oct. 4~ 1929. Other buildings which have been built since then include: Kellogg Institute, the Maternity Hospital, the additions to the f Chemistry and the East Engi- neering buildings, Victor Vaughn House, Alice Lloyd Hall, the Food Service, a huge addition to the Union and the School of Public Health. Even the Student Publications building is part of the Ruthven r building program, as is the Law School's Hutchins Hall, the Law Library and the John P. Cook dor- mitory in the Law Quadrangle. The Veterans' Readjustment Cen- ter and the University Terrace apartments are also among the recently completed additions to the University's physical plant. 'The athletic plant has seen the construction of an addition to the stadium, new baseball stands, an addition to the coliseum and a new golf clubhouse since 1929. Board Picks OSU Vee As Eighth 'U'President Harlan Henthorne Hatcher, vice-president of Ohio State University, was named the eighth president of the University at 11 a.m. today. Hatcher, a 52-year-old author and civic leader, will succeed Alexander G. Ruthven, who will begin his year-long retirement furlough on July 1. . . . .Hatcher will take up his duties as president of the University on Regents Reach Decision Sept. 1 The long-awaited announces ment, culminating an intensive 18- A'emonth search by the University Board of Regents, came suddenly early this morning. More than a year of painstaking deliberation by the Board of The Regents actually reached Regents lies behind the selection of Harlan H. Hatcher as the Uni- their decision Saturday morning versity's new president. but adjourned in order to offer No special committee made the selection-because of its impor- the position to Dr. Hatcher. Ob- tance the entire Board took part in the choice, acting as a committee gents reconvened this morning to of the whole under the chairmanship of Regent J. Joseph Herbert formalize the appointment and an of Manistique. nounce their decision. More than 100 names were considered. These came from promi- nent alumni, educators, and other interested persons who knew of. -Courtesy Ann Arbor News 4 RETIRING PRESIDENT ALEXANDER G. RUTHVEN NEW PRESIDENT HARLAN H. HATCHER Educator Extraordinaire Leaves Mark By DAVE THOMAS Daily Feature Editor SOMETIME after 5 p.m. on the last day of June, a squarely- built Scotchman will rise from his desk on the second floor of the Administration Building, bid his secretary good evening and stride from the prestige and responsibili- ty which pervades the office of a university president into the more leisurely life of a well-deserved re- tirement. His escape will not be unob- served. A crowd of facultymen, ad- ministrators and other friends will be on hand to see him off. There will be photographers and a row of newspapermen and perhaps a tardy business caller who will want n around his neck to the breast poc- ket of his summer suit. There will be warm handshakes and good-natured words of appre- ciation with old friends in the modern surroundings of the recep- tion room. Then, Alexander Grant Ruth- ven, for 22 years president of one of the largest educational in- stitutions in the world, will po- litely but firmly break away and head homeward, there to begin with Mrs. Ruthven the im- mense task of sorting and pack- ing the accumulated gifts and acquisitions of their stay in the white stucco house on South University where all but one of the University's seven presidents have made their homes. As he walks along the shrub- lined walks, through the lengthen- ing shadows of trees and buildings, Alexander G. Ruthven may well' allow himself a broad smile of satisfaction. He will have just completed a period of service as president which is longer than any other man now in top office in a state university. The University whose control he will have just relinquished has re- search and extension branches scattered from South Africa to northern Michigan and boasts some of the. finest undergraduate and graduate schools in the coun- try. A faculty of 1,300, includ- ing many of national and inter- national fame, is engaged in public service, research and the instruction of more than 20,000 students, utilizing a plant,invest- ment which tops $90,000,000. These figures are twice what they were in 1929. Endowment funds now total more than $25,000,000, six time's what they were a generation ago. Where hundreds of students formerly lived in frequently-inade- quate lodgings, thousands now en- joy a vast dormitory system. A university which was torn with dissention and rivalry when he assumed office, now functions smoothly with a minimum of friction. A progressive education program which forced the resignation of his predecessor has been established and even extended. The University, through its alumni organization and research prestige, has captured the imagi- nations of citizens across the na- tion and passed the half-way mark in a drive to raise $6,500,000 for a research project into the problems of living in the atomic age. The University enjoys an annual appropriation rfrom the State Legislature more than four times as large as in 1929. * * * ALEXANDER G. Ruthven would be the first to protest that others in addition to himself had a hand in this unprecedented rec- ord of development. The two dec- ades of his administration were turbulent and often discouraging, but in the end they were decades of great progress for U.S. educa- See RUTHVEN, Page 5 President Ruthven's forthcoming< retirement. Starting with this huge list of names, the Regents traveled from coast to coast to investi- gate the qualifications of the various candidates. This invest- igation was carried on largely by contact with persons well acquainted with the work of those being considered. In addition, the Regents at- tempted to get first hand interviews with all the candidates, without letting them know they were be- ing considered for the University presidency. LITTLE BY LITTLE, the field was narrowed. Some candidates weren't available. Others did not meet the Regents' standards for the post. When only two or three can- didates remained, the Regents paused and "began searching our own souls," according to Regent Herbert. They did this to be sure that they had applied the proper yardsticks to this most difficult decision. At a meeting Saturday, the committee of the whole recom- mended that the Board of Re- gents appoint Hatcher to the presidency. Yesterday, Regents Herbert, Otto E. Eckert, Roscoe 0. Bonisteel and Murray D. Van Wagoner, acting on behalf of the committee of the whole, met with Hatcher in Toledo and ten- dered him the post. Hatcher having accepted the of- fer, the Regents met at 10:50 a.m. today, and announced his appoint- ment after a 10-minute meeting. ITPresident , Turnover RateHigh By NANCY BYLAN Daily Associate Editor Although the University hasn't had one for 22 years, new college presidents are as common as blue books in April. On the average they are appoint- ed in droves of more than six and a half per month-or at least they have been since January, 1950. Be- tween that time and April of this year, a total of 93 colleges and universities acquired new chief ex- ecutives. IF APPOINTMENTS have moved at this rate for the past two decades, then an estimated 1,700 new college presidents have ap- peared on the academic scene since this University last named one. Most of the last year's 99 va- cancies, which called these new presidents into being, were the re- sults of resignations for greener fields. Of 59 such presidential exits, the majority were made by men who accepted new appointments in, the field of education. A sizable number, however, were whisked away from their ivory towers by President Tru- man to fill newly created mobili- See AMERICAN, Page 2 * * * THE, ANNOUNCEMENT itself was made at 11:01 a.m. by Regent J. Joseph Herbert at a dr'na- packed press conference attended by newspapermen from all over the sta'te. Regent Herbert, chairman of the Board's Committee of the Whole, described President- elect Hatcher as "a leader who meets the test of Michigan's great traditions." At his home in Columbus, Ohio, Hatcher said, "I look forward with great interest to the privilege of serving the University of Michigan in this period of responsibility and opportunity." HATCHER, a native of Ironton, Ohio, prepared for college at More- head Normal School in Kentucky. He received his A.B. at Ohio State in 1922, an A.M. degree in 1923 and his Ph.D. in 1927. In addition, he did postA doctoral work at the University of Chicago and spent a year in Italy, France and England stud- ying the Renaissance. Hatcher became an instructor of English at Ohio State in 1922 and was appointed a full professor of English in 1932. Serving as dean from 1944-48, he became vice- president in charge of faculties and curriculum in September, 1948. ** * NOTED AS one of Ohio's most outstanding citizens, Hatcher was given the Ohio Governor's Award for Advancement of Ohio's Prestige in 1949. A year later he received the Ohioana Grand Medal for his books on Ohio and the'Northwest Territory. The citation character- ized Hatcher as an "Inspiring' teacher, judicious educator, dis- tinguished man of letters, historian of Ohio." Hatcher was married to the former Ann Gregory Vance, of New Haven, Conn., in 1942. The Hatchers have two children, Robert Leslie, age 7, and Anne Linda, age 5. Ranked as one of the nation's top scholars, because of his at- tainments in English and his his- torical writings, Hatcher has long been regarded as one of the "great educational- leaders in the coun- try." His students have labelled him "an inspiring teacher" and his col- leagues have cited him as "a teacher and administrator with vision, a man who gets things done +1,'nlar,,- nnara.nn an d ,A ffati ALL THIS expansion of facili- to know what all the fuss is about. ties came as a result of a rapidly * * * growing student body. Fewer than THE DIGNIFIED 69-year-old 10,000 students were in residence educator will be in the best of here when President Ruthven took humors. He will comply with the office, requests of photographers, stand- Enrollment reached a post- ing erect one hand in a coat pocket, war peak of about 22,000 in the ribbon of his pince-nez flowing 1948, and is now down to slight- with a scholarly assertion from ly under 20,000. Dollarwise, the value of' the University's plant has more than SEVEN PRESIDE doubled. As of last June 30, this amounted to $90,756,605, not counting the value of buildings in process of construction. In 1929, the building assetsE amounted to only $35,221,708. ONE OF THE most striking in- novations of the Ruthven adminis- By JANET WATTS tration was the launching of the Daily Associate Editor Michigan House Plan-the., resi- WHEN THE University's eighth deuce hall program. WHENitse nh m president takes office, he This was done "to bring students probably will be free from the together-to give them a well- cries of religious sectarianism, balanced diet and more comfort- pressures of medical theory fa- able living quarters," according to naticism and squabbles with the President Ruthven. Before the State Legislature which plagued plan went into effect, most stu- many of his predecessors. dents lived in widely scattered Charges of secularism and athe- rooming houses or fraternities and ism made against many of the sororities. University's early presidents can World War 11 proved to be a be traced to the philosophy on ' E .j ,i ; NTS IN 144 YEARS: U' Chiefs Faced Vehement Criticism * * * * * * , * * , f , t dy Dutch stubbornness which of- fended many of the rugged indi- vidualists he worked with in the West. ANY of the Ann Arbor towns- people thought Tappan was pompous and unfriendly. And even his wife reported that he had thought of his task as president made him a kind of educational missionary to the uncultured aWest.. :y~zss ,,. T nn-n p .il n n the ,.._ j If :...:::: f .. ;; i:f:ii' :;.'.! y ...4 . .. . y.