“How to Start a University from Scratch,”

A Story from the Association Journal
Submitted by Peter Hood
IACRAO Archivist

I happened upon this article as a result of the Association Journal changing its title from American Association of Registrars to College and University. In making this switch, the leadership expressed their intention to broaden its contents to include a greater breadth of higher education. They stated the journal should be “by and for everyone who is interested in higher education.” As I looked at the article titles in the same volume, I noticed one entitled, “How to Start a University from Scratch.” I thought, “Wow, this title certainly indicates a broadening from previous registrar-focused topics.”

The article is a paper presented to our Illinois Association in October 1947 by H. E. Temmer, registrar. It is his account of the beginnings of the University of Illinois at Navy Pier. I am sure each of you has encountered those times when admissions and/or registration situations seemed overwhelming. Events when the registration system broke down, computer systems failed, communication was lacking, the result of which was chaos, confusion, and a feeling of being inundated. So if you think you have been overwhelmed at times with your responsibilities, read this.

It was late in May of 1946, a time when hordes of veterans returning under the G.I. Bill descended upon unprepared colleges and universities. The front line is admissions and registrar personnel. It was during this time that the U of I Board of Trustees decided to bring the university to the many veterans living in the Chicago area. One of the contributing factors was the acute housing shortage in Urbana. Here is an abbreviated summary of Mr. Temmer’s description* of what the registrar faced at Navy Pier.

It was July 29 when the registrar’s office arrived—four of us with no telephones, no office and 500 prospective students crowded into the Pier demanding information we didn’t have. Three thousands pieces of mail were stacked in one corner of the large empty room that we had commandeered. We didn’t have the clerical help or the typewriters to start answering the mail. It was a discouraged lot that left the Pier that first day after work.

But the four of us were back again the next morning, with a telephone, and an inspiring speech to recruit student worker to help. The other three staff members tackled the task of sorting 3,000 pieces of mail and the job of answering the thousands of questions from prospective students. What courses were going to be offered? We didn’t know, only that the Board of Trustees ruled we were to offer freshman and sophomore courses in Liberal Arts, Commerce, and Engineering. When would classes start? Again we didn’t know, but as soon as possible. We hoped by Christmas.

Instead of eight-hour days, we started working twice that long. We enlisted students, faculty and staff (when they were finally hired) to read the now 5,000 letters on hand and begin evaluating transcripts on a mass production basis. It was quite a life! We lived on hot dogs from the corner stand. Every five days we moved from one hotel to another since we couldn’t take time to look for permanent quarters.

Finally, student pressure, built around the need to know when classes would start, became so great that we went into a huddle and threw darts at the calendar until we hit a good date, October 21, with registration starting on October 15. No one was more surprised than we were when it really happened. If we had had enough experience to know the problems that were ahead of us, I don’t think any one of us would have taken the job. About the time we were feeling settled with Navy surplus furniture and typewriters, the contractor came to tell us to pack up and move to the second floor while the first floor space was being remodeled.

One day, when registration was less than a month away, I discovered that we had no provisions for handling class cards. We commandeered some Navy surplus tabulating equipment and decided to use an IBM registration procedure similar to the one in Urbana. But it turned out that it was two weeks AFTER registration before the equipment was ready to go! You can imagine the difficulties encountered when we had an IBM registration without IBM equipment.

More than 8,000 applications were distributed. A week before registration we had issued 3,753 permits to enter and had a backlog of 1,300 applications. There were long hours worked that week. However, where were we going to handle the crowds? The only available space was on the second floor, space where the Navy had housed 5,000 men. It took two days to clear the beds from the area, which is a half-mile long, and 100 feet wide!

The actual registration procedure was developed only four days before registration, little time to train the faculty and staff. Frankly, it was BEDLAM, but at the end of the registration period, we had enrolled 3,854 students.

It wasn’t easy for the students either during those first few weeks. Lines formed at five in the morning. Construction of classrooms and laboratories were far from completion. The half-mile corridor was described by students as the “world’s longest obstacle course,” as they skirted cement mixers, ladders and workers’ tools on their way to classes.

Discussion in rhetoric classes was punctuated by the staccato blows of pneumatic hammers. One day a mathematics class was thrown into total confusion when a workman suddenly poked his head through a ventilating shaft in the ceiling and begged someone to get him a ladder so he could descend!

Finally, we literally borrowed Mark Hopkins’ log for the first few weeks of classes and pronounced it a university—a university on a water-lapped campus that, according to the students, was pretty unique. A student remarked, “Where else could you watch aircraft carriers riding at anchor, sea planes landing every afternoon, and fishermen dragging in their daily haul, all right outside your classroom window, and get a college education at the same time.”

Those registrars and admissions individuals survived, and you know that you will to.

*Journal of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars, Vol. 23, April 1948, pp. 413-418.