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

Chapter 4: McVey’s Era of Great Aspirations 1922–1931

132 McVey’s Era of Great Aspirations 1922–1931 Chapter 4 Since education in a state can rise no higher than its source, a university and normal schools must be maintained. Kentucky has all of these; however, their financial support has not been sufficient to permit them to do what the people and especially the children and young people should have done for them. —Frank LeRond McVey, 1924 The personal and professional low point McVey faced in 1922 could have been enough to lead him away from the University of Kentucky. Having struggled for years to pull the university forward, he had failed to capture the imagination of the commonwealth’s citizens or the legislature. Nevertheless , he remained at the University of Kentucky for both personal and professional reasons, the former probably outweighing the latter. Most important, the events of the 1920s would cause him to remain in Lexington for the rest of his professional career. Fittingly, the one bright spot for McVey and the university’s finances at the close of 1922 resulted from a death. Mary F. Bingham had passed away in 1917, willing to the University of North Carolina an endowment that generated $75,000 annually to hire and retain promising professors. However, a long lawsuit brought by the commonwealth ensued, concerning the taxes on her estate. Once it was resolved, Kentucky collected more than a million dollars in inheritance taxes, and from this the university received upward of $100,000. Once news of the decision reached McVey, 133 McVEY’S ERA OF GREAT ASPIRATIONS he immediately developed plans to spend it even before UK had all the funds in hand. The money would help complete an extension to the unfinished chemistry building. Although the projected expense was approximately $200,000, McVey believed the need for the facility outweighed the debt obligation, and he decided to move forward with the construction . These additional funds allowed the university, which had expected to operate at a loss, to function at approximately the same level as the previous academic year.1 The Bingham settlement was not the only morbid serendipity to keep the university’s debt to a minimum. In 1922 a $50,000 donation from the will of the late Ernest B. Ellis provided another small boost. McVey stated in June that UK was in a “better financial situation than we have been in a number of years.” This did not mean that the university had the state funding that McVey desired for long-term improvements; it simply meant that it could function fiscally without taking on greater indebtedness. McVey persisted with his mantra that UK would lose its best faculty to wealthier institutions and that the overcrowded campus could not continue to add students without expanding facilities. In short, UK needed money to be competitive with its neighboring flagship and land-grant institutions.2 As McVey continued looking for funds beyond operating expenses, he faced an uphill battle. The legislative debacle of 1922 offered an example of the state’s lack of support for UK. At that time, McVey was three years into a stalled capital campaign to raise $300,000 for Memorial Hall “to honor the [World War I] dead and to inspire the living.” In 1919, the initial phase of a highly publicized campaign garnered pledges amounting to approximately half the goal. The citizens of Lexington had pledged approximately two-thirds of the $150,000 subscribed, and alumni support was far less than McVey had originally hoped for.3 By the spring of 1922, the university had less than $80,000 to show for its efforts. The alumni had failed to contribute much, and most of the residents of Lexington who had subscribed refused to pay, arguing that their pledges were merely for moral support. The legislature’s failure to provide extra funding led McVey and alumni secretary Herbert Graham 134 FRANK L. McVEY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY to renew their agitation for support. In April 1922, a circular entitled “Alma Mater Is Calling” was sent to the alumni, but it had little effect on the campaign.4 Faced with a failed internal fund-raising campaign, McVey began corresponding with Tamblyn and Brown, a private development agency based in New York that had executed successful capital campaigns in the nascent field of university development. In September, George Tamblyn wrote to McVey, outlining the expenses involved in a drive to raise $500,000. If...