West Virginia University: Symbol of Unity in a Sectionalized State

Chapter 13: Into the University's Second Century: Gadgets and Governance

Chapter 13 1967-1977 James Gindling Harlow August 16, 1967-June 30, 1977 Into the University's Second Century: Gadgets and Governance BELIEVING IN 1933, the year in which he com­ pleted his bachelor's degree in mathematics and his master's degree in physics from the University of Oklahoma at the age of 21, that he would become "an electronics hotshot," James G. Harlow, sixteenth president of West Virginia University, later admitted to The Charleston Gazette on October 15, 1967, he had made a mistake in vocational timing. Finding himself during the Depression unable to get any closer to electronics than selling vacuum tubes in a basement of a hardware store, the young Oklahoman quickly opted for high school teaching in Seminole and Oklahoma City before serving in the Navy during World War II. From 1934 to 1941 and 1946 to 1948, he served as editor of the Harlow Publishing Cor­ poration whose principal businesses were the printing of law books and high school text­ books. This assignment came from a family business begun by his father, Victor, a coun­ try newspaper editor who had migrated from Missouri to Oklahoma to rescue the family fortunes by founding a regional political magazine called Harlow's Weekly. Not only did the publishing concern provide an income 282 1967-1977 283 supplement to his high school teaching, but it also enabled Harlow to write several high school teaching aids in algebra, mathematics, and science, and thus establish himself. Concluding his naval service with the rank of lieutenant commander, Harlow became an instructor and later assistant professor of physics at the University of Oklahoma, and also filled in for a year as associate dean of the University College and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in a period of rapidly increasing veteran enrollment . In 1951, with student population slackening, he entered the University of Chicago, where he obtained a doc­ torate in education, and then served as a research associate and associate professor of education. Lured back to his native state in 1957 by a group of businessmen to direct the Frontiers of Science Foundation, he was asked midway through the year to become dean of education at the University of Oklahoma, a position he held for ten years. At the age of 55, Harlow responded to West Virginia University's call. His age caused a Martinsburg Journal editor to surmise at the time of Harlow's formal inauguration on September 14, 1968, that the sixteenth president was obviously not "in the category of his two immediate predecessors who seemed to be merely 'using' WVU as a stepping stone in advancing their personal ambitions." The Morgantown Post concurred and was of the opinion that "after the recent short-termers who held the office and left it when they couldn't resist the lure of more prestigious positions, Dr. Harlow offered a promise of more stability and more direction for the University." Harlow himself implied he had not sought the University presidency, and that it had found him at a somewhat advanced age for beginning such services when he said to The Charleston Gazette one month later: "I would never look for a state university presidency. I never have. I think anybody who isn't afraid of one isn't safe with one." Both during an early visit to the campus and during his first state press conference on June 22, 1967, the president-elect disarmed reporters by speak­ ing more of Oklahoma's university than West Virginia's and by declaring that any statements on the latter were not at the moment "hampered by either information or responsibility." Nevertheless, he reported that he was "look­ ing forward to working with a bunch of pros who really know what's going on." He also disarmed the residents of Morgantown as well as the academic community when he remarked, "A University's relationship to its communi­ ty is like a marriage. It is not friction free but is involved in a mutual activ­ ity from which neither can escape." At his first convocation on September 6, 1967, Harlow was also to disconcert the students by humorously comment­ ing that all it really takes to be a university president is "a touch of grey hair for a look of distinction and a mild allergy for a look of concern." Casting himself and Mrs. Harlow as representing the wave of the future - 284...