Frank L. McVey and the University of Kentucky: A Progressive President and the Modernization of a Southern University

Chapter 2: A Southern University and a Northern Progressive 1917–1920

58 A Southern University and a Northern Progressive 1917–1920 Chapter 2 The university is a vital force and not merely an abiding place . . . I look to you for sympathy, for support, and for substantial help. With these generously given, the University can do its part in the building of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. —Frank LeRond McVey, 1918 The normally prudent Frank McVey accepted the presidency of the University of Kentucky with uncharacteristic haste, suggesting desperation on his part to extricate himself from an increasingly tense situation in North Dakota. On 25 July 1917 McVey received a telegram from Abraham Flexner, a Kentucky native serving as secretary of the General Education Board in New York. Flexner, who had gained prominence through his research and writing about higher education, had learned of the opening in his home state, recommended McVey to the presidential search committee, and personally contacted McVey in order to set up an interview.1 McVey was on the East Coast for work, but the search committee managed to contact him within the week. They set up a meeting at the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago, where McVey could stop on his return to Grand Forks. The president arrived late at the meeting and, according to university legend, excused himself to take a quick shower. He emerged from the bathroom without a shirt, and as Thomas Clark recounted, the search committee was impressed with the hair on his chest. McVey’s son, Frank 59 A SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY AND A NORTHERN PROGRESSIVE Jr., however, recalled that it was the hair on his back that made the impression . Folklore aside, the search committee immediately sought to secure McVey for the position. Judge Richard Stoll, a leading member of the Board of Trustees who chaired the search committee, assured McVey that he was confident the committee would grant their unanimous support in recommending him for the presidency. He added, “I have met no man yet to whom I would rather entrust the future of the University.”2 The search committee unanimously recommended McVey, and the Board of Trustees supported the choice. McVey immediately found himself in the driver’s seat, asking questions about the quality of the president’s housing and requesting time off to conduct a research project. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace had offered McVey a grant to write a report concerning the economic impact of the World War I in England , but it would take much of the fall semester to research and write the study. Stoll saw no reason why McVey could not stay in Washington, D.C., until mid-October (a period that McVey would manage to extend through the rest of the fall semester), adding that the board was willing to help McVey in any way it could. Stoll also noted that one newly acquired property (eventually called Maxwell Place) needed repairs, but that the renovations would make it an attractive residence for the incoming president.3 While the McVeys were considering the post, both of Frank’s parents offered unsolicited advice. Frank’s mother wrote first, noting that despite the proximity of Kentucky to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the commonwealth was far different from its neighbors on the northern side of the Ohio River. She then argued that the competition from other institutions within Kentucky made this post no more desirable than the situation he had in Grand Forks. His father, however, took a different view later in the week. He cautioned that the job would “require a great deal of labor, and . . . is not free from some difficulty,” and wrote, “Kentucky has not arrived at the enthusiastic state of mind which has prevailed in Minnesota, Wisconsin , [and] Michigan . . . with reference to their State Universities.” However, Alfred thought his son should take the job to avoid any more political trouble with the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota.4 In August the Board of Trustees offered McVey the presidency at a 60 FRANK L. McVEY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY salary of $8,500. News of the board’s vote reached him at Cass Lake in Minnesota, where he was vacationing. He accepted the post without delay and devoted the remainder of the summer to concluding his work in Grand Forks and spending time with his family. Remembering the family ’s enthusiasm at the prospect of moving, Virginia McVey recalled that her father would sleep on the porch of the president’s house in...