Frank L. McVey and the University of Kentucky: A Progressive President and the Modernization of a Southern University by Eric A. Moyen (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 94 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Frank L. McVey and the University of Kentucky: A Progressive President and the Modernization of a Southern University Eric A. Moyen The rise of the modern American research university remains a central point of inquiry for historians of education. Scholarly interest in the subject is understandable. The story of America’s educational paradigm shift— from the denominationally controlled, socially privileged small colleges of the nineteenth century to the democratically principled, publicly funded universities of the twentieth—is often inspiring, sometimes disheartening, but always enlightening and infinitely fascinating. Eric A. Moyen’s biography of Frank McVey, president of the University of Kentucky (UK) from 1909 to 1940, humanizes and contextualizes the subject in ways no single institutional history could. Moyen makes use of a dizzying array of source materials in his defining account of McVey’s transformational career. He deftly combines seemingly disparate pieces of evidence—love letters , newspaper extracts, anecdotal stories, and excerpts from McVey’s personal journal—with hundreds of official and unofficial records. The effect is a lavish, three-dimensional portrait, not merely of a university president, but of a man, an institution, and an emerging national ideal. The work follows a strict chronology divided among seven distinct periods. McVey’s early life, childhood, education, and years spent as president of the University of North Dakota comprise the opening chapter; the remainder focuses on McVey’s thirty-one-year career as president of UK. Moyen places special emphasis throughout on McVey’s evolving progressive agenda. His work as an economist, participation in civic organizations, and deeply held spiritual convictions produced his complicated blend of progressive values and conservative tendencies . McVey saw the university as an asset to the state of Kentucky, a means of raising the intellectual standards of its citizens and the commercial capacities of its industries. But his vision required massive financial outlays: money to increase the size of UK’s physical plant, the quality of its matriculates, the productivity of its faculty, and the scope of its mandate as the state’s flagship university. McVey dedicated his career to these ends. As the leader of Kentucky’s premier institution of Eric A. Moyen. Frank L. McVey and the University of Kentucky: A Progressive President and the Modernization of a Southern University. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011. 414 pp. ISBN: 9780813129839 (cloth), $35.00. BOOK REVIEWS WINTER 2011 95 higher education, he felt justified in pressing for the same advantages won by other state institutions . The state legislatures and tax plans of North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana all contributed vastly higher sums to their flagship universities; McVey sought only to bring parity to his adopted home. To this end, McVey courted private donors, pressured state legislators, cajoled and politicked Kentucky’s governors, and took his educational vision directly to the people, one year traversing over six thousand miles of Kentucky roads in order to give public speeches in defense of his vision. McVey found his efforts to increase funding all the more difficult because of increased competition from Kentucky’s regional institutions and normal schools, all of which desired a larger piece of the state-funding pie. His efforts paid off. Increased state appropriations and private donations allowed for the construction of over thirty campus structures, agricultural experiment stations in western and eastern Kentucky, an improved rate of retention and recruitment of faculty (through increased salaries), a host of new academic departments and colleges, and countless other reforms. But Moyen presents another side to McVey: the university president who allowed UK’s campus and curriculum to expand without an efficient plan of development; who suppressed academic freedom; who twice rejected proposals for a medical college; who worked against the inclusion of minorities in higher education; and who argued for the complete cessation of UK’s athletic programs. Although Moyen makes no attempt to disguise these unsavory features of McVey’s professional life, he certainly downplays statements and actions that contradicted the more favorable aspects of the president’s “progressive” ideology in order to present a positive portrait. Less problematic but equally distracting are Moyen’s organizational decisions. The richness and breadth of available source materials gives his...