UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA: the First Fifty Years, 1956-2006
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Western Washington University Western CEDAR Western Libraries Faculty and Staff ubP lications Western Libraries and the Learning Commons 1-1-2006 University of South Florida: The irsF t Fifty Years, 1956-2006 Mark I. Greenberg University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://cedar.wwu.edu/library_facpubs Part of the Higher Education Commons, Higher Education Administration Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Greenberg, Mark I., "University of South Florida: The irF st Fifty Years, 1956-2006" (2006). Western Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications. 43. https://cedar.wwu.edu/library_facpubs/43 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Western Libraries and the Learning Commons at Western CEDAR. It has been accepted for inclusion in Western Libraries Faculty and Staff ubP lications by an authorized administrator of Western CEDAR. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA: The First Fifty Years, 1956-2006 By Mark I. Greenberg Lead Research by Andrew T. Huse Design by Marilyn Keltz Stephens PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA Tampa, Florida, 2006 Acknowledgements This project began more than three and a half years ago during a meeting with USF President Judy Genshaft. I came prepared for our discussion with several issues for her consideration. She had a topic she wanted to discuss with me. As it turned out, we both wanted to talk about celebrating the university’s fiftieth anniversary with a commemorative book. As our conversation unfolded, she commissioned me to write a celebratory coffee table-style history. She has remained a great champion of the book since its inception, and I am grateful for all she has done to help see it to completion. In addition to the president, many other people have assisted with this project. Provost David Stamps, USF Foundation President Michael Rierson and Chief Financial Officer John Scott, and Library System Dean Derrie Perez committed the needed financial resources. In University Relations, Karen Clarke and Michael Reich shared their expertise as well as the extraordinary talents of graphic designer Marilyn Stephens and photographer Jason Marsh. Debbie Lum, Lisa Lewis, and the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association understood the book’s importance from day one and helped move it from concept to reality. A gifted team of students aided with research, which included reading The Tampa Times University of South Florida Campus Edition and The Oracle every day from September 26, 1960, to the present, recording and transcribing 200 oral history interviews, and poring over archival materials in the library’s Special Collection Department. Thank you to Daniel Bertwell, Kelley Cason, Lauren Dominguez, Lanie Hamel, Erika Perez, Jared Toney, and Mary Yeary for their countless hours of hard work. More than 200 people gave generously of their time to sit for oral history interviews to commemorate USF’s fiftieth anniversary. Too numerous to name here, these individuals 2 included students, faculty, and staff from the charter class to the present; university presidents, provosts, deans, and department chairs; politicians and community leaders; donors and volunteers. USF exists today because of the many thousands of individuals who created it. The small sample of people involved in this project spoke eloquently of their own experiences and represented larger stories as well. To conduct these many valuable interviews, I benefited from the expertise and energy of interviewers Yael V. Greenberg, Andy Huse, Lucy Jones, and Danielle Riley. The oral histories recorded by Nancy Hewitt and Milly St. Julien for USF’s twenty-fifth anniversary also informed the narrative. Not every account appears in these pages, but all the interviews are preserved for posterity in the Florida Studies Center’s Oral History Program. As I began writing the book, I called on numerous people to fill in a gap or confirm a piece of information. My appreciation to Vincent Ahern, Grace Allen, Raymond Arsenault, Robert Ashford, Kathy Betancourt, Peter Betzer, Michelle Carlyon, Barbara Donerly, Vicky English, Jenna Felder, Margaret Fisher, John Gerdes, Sam Gibbons, Susan Greenbaum, Tony Greer, Abdelwahab Hechiche, Anila Jain, Debbie Lum, Cecil Mackey, John Melendi, Vicki Mitchell, Gary Mormino, Kathleen Moore, Jeffrey Muir, Noreen Segrest, William Scheuerle, Jim Schnur, J. M. “Sudsy” Tschiderer, and Cindy Visot for sharing their knowledge and offering good counsel. While conducting research for the fiftieth anniversary, Florida Studies Center staff received several important donations of photographs and artifacts from members of the university community. Walter Afield, Richard Bowers, Jack Fernandez, and Barbara Campbell Johnson generously gave from their personal collections to the library’s Special Collections Department so that others could appreciate the richness of USF history. 3 I have benefited from the insight and suggestions of those people who read all or part of the manuscript. Kathy Betancourt, Sam Gibbons, Lee Leavengood, Victor Leavengood, Debbie Lum, Gary Mormino, Michael Reich, Jim Schnur, Noreen Segrest, William Scheuerle, J. M. “Sudsy” Tschiderer, and Cindy Visot made many helpful suggestions and saved me from countless factual and interpretive errors. The faculty and staff in the USF Tampa Library have supported this project from the beginning. I am especially indebted to Dean Derrie Perez and fellow directors Merilyn Burke, Todd Chavez, Nancy Cunningham, Jim Gray, Larry Heilos, and Phyllis Ruscella, as well as colleagues Kimberly Constantine, Teresa Dominguez, Jane Duncan, Nafa Fa’alogo, Matt Guida, Jared Hoppenfeld, Kenyatta Harris, Nancy Jacobs-Dilley, Florence Jandreau, Matt McDonough, Skye Rodgers, Joyce Sadler, and Eric Stewart. Within the Special Collections Department, Richard Bernardy, Paul Camp, Kokita Dirton-Wilson, Jamie Hansen, David Pullen, Walter Rowe, Keli Rylance, Lesley Stone, Tomaro Taylor, Pat Tuttle, and a cadre of talented graduate students and part-time student employees made coming to work each day a pleasure. Without the expertise, patience, and perseverance of the department’s assistant librarian Andrew Huse, lead researcher for the book, I would still be writing. His 1,500-page annotated chronology and over 3,000 digitized images will continue to assist people interested in the university’s history for years to come. Finally, to Kathy and Natalie, who made coming home at night even more enjoyable than working on this project. Mark I. Greenberg Tampa, January 2006 4 Chapter 1: From the Ground Up In December 1954, Hillsborough County legislators Sam Gibbons and James Moody sat for coffee in Maas Brothers’ Neptune Room in downtown Tampa. As the men pored over materials for the upcoming legislative session, their attention turned to higher education in the state. At the time, just three state universities -- the University of Florida in Gainesville and Florida State University and Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University in Tallahassee -- served the needs of a combined 36,000 students from Pensacola to Key West. The Florida Board of Control, which oversaw higher education in the state, had recently charged the Council for the Study of Higher Education in Florida to begin a planning study to determine future needs. Released two years later, Higher Education and Florida’s Future (known as the Brumbaugh Report) projected a 350 percent increase in enrollment over the next twenty years. It called for an expanded statewide system of community colleges and for new universities near population centers. In January 1955, Representatives Gibbons and Moody saw the initial report and supported the creation of urban universities. They wanted one in the Tampa Bay area.1 A rising population and growing demand for post-secondary education created both a need and opportunity for more schools. The state’s population had nearly doubled every two decades beginning in 1900, largely through in-migration. At 2.7 million people in 1950, experts predicted the population would exceed 6.1 million by 1970. Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties contained just under 410,000 residents in 1950 and nearly 750,000 ten years later -- an astounding 89 percent increase.2 1 Initial Report of the Council for the Study of Higher Education in Florida, January 20, 1955; Accent on Learning, 1959, vol. 1, no. 1 (Tampa: University of South Florida, 1959), 17. 2 Gary Mormino, “Tampa at Midcentury: 1950,” Sunland Tribune 26 (August 2000): 65. 5 World War II had transformed Florida and the Tampa Bay region with it. America’s war effort to defeat the Axis Powers was concentrated in the state. Even before Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. Army received 6,400 acres of land on a largely unsettled peninsula known as Catfish Point. Congress appropriated more than $3 million to build an airbase there and named it after aviator Leslie MacDill. In 1940, the U.S. government leased Drew Field Municipal Airport (located on the site of Tampa International Airport) and converted it into an Army Air Corps Base. On a desolate patch of land bordered by Fowler Avenue, Temple Terrace Highway (present-day Busch Boulevard.) and 30th and 46th streets, Henderson Field served as an auxiliary airbase and practice bombing range from 1942 to 1946. Bombardiers dropped sand- filled metal casings on targets north of the landing strip. A small charge in the tail left a visible puff of smoke for determining accuracy. Today, only one building from the base remains, housing Mel’s Hot Dogs on Busch Boulevard. Over 20,000 men and women from Hillsborough County left for the armed services during the war. More than 150,000 military personnel came through Tampa during their training. Some estimates placed new workers in the city’s industries at just under 32,000, nearly doubling Tampa’s total working population. Energy shifted from Ybor City’s cigar manufacturing to Ybor Channel’s shipyards, which received a total of $330 million in wartime contracts. The Tampa Shipbuilding Company alone employed 16,000 people in 1944 and became the region’s largest civilian employer.