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| Vetville, where Houghton Academy now is |
In any case, you had the bulk of American men returning from the war, looking for a peacetime purpose in life. The GI Bill gave them the opportunity to study whatever they wanted to study and thus to pursue career paths they probably wouldn't have otherwise. It would slingshot Houghton College into the second phase of its existence in a spurt of rapid growth.
If Houghton had 292 students and 24 full-time professors in the 1943-44 school year, in 1949 it would have 816 students and 47 professors.
2. This required a lot of building in a short period of time.
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| Willard Smith |
If Luckey had his Bedford, Paine had his Willard Smith. Smith would serve first as professor of social sciences, then as business manager from 1935-72. From there he would go on to be the General Treasurer of the newly merged Wesleyan Church from 1972-78. One wonders the degree to which the success of the campus in this era involved him. He is another unsung hero of Houghton and the Wesleyan Church.
In the early 2000s, Smith reminisced about those days when the board mostly consisted of preachers who didn't understand business. "I found I had an audience that didn't know what I was talking about when I talked about hard-nosed business matters. I was stuck two ways: the typical academician who didn't know what I was talking about and the board members who didn't know what I was talking about, so I had nobody to talk to. Even Stephen Paine didn't understand the hard-nosed issues of the cost of deferred maintenance" ... etc. [2]
It is a well-kept secret in the academy that a college is a business that requires students in order to keep the doors open and that students only come if they perceive a college to have something to offer them.
3. As early as 1944, Smith and Paine went to Albany to meet with the governor to prepare for the coming onslaught of returning vets. First, the college rented and prepared one of the dorms on the Wesleyan campgrounds up the hill where Nielsen is now (Dow Hall). The old Wesleyan church building, which had become a recreation hall after the new church was built in 1934, was also fitted for temporary housing. Some classes would be held in the basement of the new Wesleyan Church.
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| Deer Hall Seymour & Luckey Street |
A barracks-type building was quickly constructed up Luckey Street in 1945, called "Deer Hall." A series of ten makeshift housing units was put up in early 1947 where Houghton Academy is now, called "Vetville" (picture at top). The college farm, up where the equestrian center currently is, was put into overdrive producing milk, meat, and vegetables.
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| Fine Arts Building |
The shell of an old mess hall from a naval station was thrown up in late 1948 just beyond the music building, with creek stone put on the exterior. This new Fine Arts Building housed an art studio, 3 classrooms, and a new radio station named WJSL (for James S. Luckey). The radio station grew out of a physics project.
4. In 1945 planning began for a second girls dorm, which would first be known as East Hall but is now Gillette, named for Frieda Gillette the history professor. The planning for the new dorm would owe much in the end to Elizabeth Beck (Feller). She had been Dean of Women in 1944-45, and would later become the first female board member (1974). [3] In 1945, Paine sent the initial plans to her for her thoughts, a sign of great confidence in her judgment.
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| Gillette in the making |
It would change the course of her master's work at the University of Michigan. [4] She now went around studying college dorms at various institutions of the moment, developing a functional approach to student housing. Her work was so good that it would be used by the federal housing authority. Thus was the birth of "East Hall," which had some occupancy as early as 1952. Eventually, two wings would be added to the ends, "Gillette" (1959) and "Rothenbuler" (1964).
5. A Middle States team visit in 1953 would also have a significant impact on the college. For example, it called for a more adequate library, a better gym, and housing for male students. It suggested that a 30-hour teaching load a year--the norm then--was excessive (even a 24-hour load is sometimes considered on the high-end today). It suggested wages were one-half to two-thirds what faculty could get elsewhere.
Of course to make all these improvements would take lots and lots of money, which is always the problem.
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| Houghton Academy |
Over the years it would especially draw international students, which of course has been very difficult during this COVID year. My wife is actually teaching sixth and seventh grade this year there.
In 1956, everything was going great for the college. An enrollment goal and cap was set at 1200. A plan was adopted for the Quad structure that exists to this day, and a new library and chapel building was planned for it. In 1957 ground was broken on the new chapel.
[1] Miriam Lemcio, Deo Volente: A Biography of Stephen Paine (1987), 130.
[2] Wing, 203.
[3] I'm not sure how to interpret Wing's comment that it was only after Paine's retirement that Feller was elected to the board (258) or that Frieda Gillette was only "interim" chair of the Division of History and Social Science for six years until she pushed Paine to make it permanent. Am I to infer that Paine had theological problems with women in leadership? If so, this was probably a reflection of his engagement with neo-evangelicalism and the Calvinist hegemony of the day.
[4] Interestingly, Michigan was in Houghton's regional territory within the Wesleyan Methodist Church at that time.
Previous posts in this series on the story of Houghton:
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