Founded by Friends : the Quaker heritage of fifteen - Scarecrow Press

Haverford College 13
secretaries. Under Morley, the first female professor, Elisa Asensio, was
brought to campus in 1941.
President Morley supported efforts to expand student government and
the honor code into the social sphere. Although a form of the honor system
had been in place from the turn of the century, rules for student behavior
in relation to the honor system and independence in student life
continued to evolve. In the 1940s, the honor code was expanded beyond
its academic scope to include a social component based on the premise
that respect and concern should guide interpersonal relations.
Felix Morley resigned in 1945, stating, “Problems particularly grim and
dislocating for a Quaker college limited to men students have had to be
confronted without evasion. . . . I have found the constant strain of administration
under these circumstances cumulatively severe.”
GILBERT WHITE (1911–2006),
THE SIXTH PRESIDENT, 1946–1955
Gilbert White was a convinced Friend who worked for the AFSC in
France during World War II and helped obtain civilian relief for Germany
in 1946. He also served as a geographer for the U.S. government dealing
with natural resource problems in the 1930s and 1940s. This was his life’s
work to which he always returned, but at the age of thirty-five, armed
with a PhD from the University of Chicago, he was already president of
Haverford College.
White had specific plans for Haverford—raising money, hiring young
professors, and improving the level of teaching—and a deep concern for
the excellence of the institution. He thought of Quaker education as having
a “balanced concern for the intellectual, emotional and spiritual.”
During his presidency, Friends’ business practice (consensus), especially
in faculty meeting, was introduced. By 1954, the endowment was at $10
million, faculty had tuition benefits for their children (as well as other
benefits), and a woman first became a tenured professor in 1955. In the
mid-1950s, women were invited for the first time to become corporation
members. Distinguished visitors came to campus, including Ralph
Bunche, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Ira De Augustine Reid (1901–1968), who was hired during White’s
term to teach sociology in 1946 and remained until 1966, was a Quaker
and Haverford’s first African American professor. In 1949, during the
McCarthy-era frenzy to uncover communists, a Philadelphia politician accused
him of membership in “communist organizations,” and his passport
was withheld by the State Department for a time. While the bulk of
his papers is elsewhere, a collection of Ira Reid’s papers was donated to
Haverford consisting chiefly of correspondence relating to this incident.