Berry College: A History

SIX. Foundation for the Future

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 [First Page] [111], (1) Lines: 0 to 33 ——— 0.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page * PgEnds: PageBreak [111], (1) John Bertrand’s 1956 arrival as Berry’s fifth president signaled changes to come, but not without struggle. While some longtime Berry loyalists decried his plans, others saw him as the Moses who would lead Berry out of its wilderness of uncertainty. Bertrand proved to be the man of the hour, guiding Berry through difficult transitions and significant accomplishments until 1980. chapter six Foundation for the Future Accepting the Challenge William McChesney Martin Jr., chairman of Berry’s board of trustees and the schools’ acting president, hadmetJohnR.BertrandthroughCharlesN.Shepardson , a member of the Federal Reserve Board. Shepardson had been dean of agriculture at Texas A&MUniversity,andBertrandhadservedasShepardson ’s assistant dean. On a business trip to Washington in the fall of 1955, Bertrand called Shepardson and was invited to have lunch in the Federal Reserve Board chairman’s dining room, where he met Martin. Two years earlier, Shepardson had introduced Bertrand to Philip Weltner as a possible candidateforBerry’spresidency,butRobertStanley Lambert had been hired.1 Bertrand, a native of Texas, held bachelors and masters degrees from Texas Technological College and a Ph.D. from Cornell University. Before completinghisformaleducationhehadbeenafarmer .He later served as associate professor of sociology and acting dean of men at Sam Houston State Teachers’ College in Texas, as a research fellow in the University of Missouri, and as dean of the Basic Division at Texas A & M University. He also served several years as a consultant to a handful of Texas junior colleges. For three years prior to coming to Berry, he had been dean and director of the Fleischmann College of Agriculture and Home Economics at the University of Nevada. Bertrand had served as a submarineof ficerinthePacificduringWorldWarIIand had received numerous decorations, including the Silver Star and the Gold Star. He was very active in a variety of civic and professional organizations, and his wife, Annabel, an Alabama native, was an artist.2 Bertrand’s decision to come to Berry was not an easy one. After some years of serious work toward achieving accreditation, its proponents were meetingwithoppositionfromsomelongtimemembersof theadministrativestaff.Someyoungerstaffmembers 111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 [112], (2) Lines: 33 to ——— 0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [112], (2) John R. Bertrand, Berry’s president from 1956 to 1979, c. 1958. who had contributed to the progress had not been invited to return to Berry, and others were considering leaving. Martin visited Bertrand in Reno and subsequently wrote to him on March 15, 1956, that Berry offeredagreatopportunityforsomeonewhohadthe patience to build on the solid foundation that was there. He added there were “two areas of disagreement which cause trouble: (1) the work program, and (2) the nature and purpose of accreditation.” Martin explained that the tendency to look at the work program as a way to give an education to those who could not otherwise afford one had caused donors to think of their gifts as charity. He, however , felt that the work program was designed to use the schools’ resources as a part of the educational process.SomelongtimeBerrystafferssawinaccreditation the risk of reorienting the schools’ emphasis toward the liberal arts and destroying its traditional areas of emphasis. In Martin’s view, it was important for the school to become accredited as soon as possible to show that the liberal-arts work met accepted standards and that accreditation should not minimize other aspects of Berry’s program. He wanted to have all-around first-class programs—in the liberal arts, in home economics, in industrial arts, in education, and the school’s other activities. Martin indicated his willingness to launch a ten-year program for progress, to include accreditation, if Bertrand was still interested and advised Bertrand to visit Berry.3 Bertrand did so on April 5–6. In his customary careful and orderly manner, he analyzed the factors in favor of and against coming to Berry and compared them to the advantages and disadvantages of remaining in Nevada. A major problem he foresaw was the tendency...