1930–31 Volume 55 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

Speaking of College Trustees(EDITORIAL NOTE: This article was intendedfor publication during 1929-30 butthe several months required for its preparationhave precluded earlier publication.It was suggested by Reuben C.Ball, Colorado, '23, and most of thespring and summer were used in completingthe data for the article. Thismakes it almost a certainty that thereare errors in it, since annual elections ofcollege trustees ordinarily come in June.For any mistakes or omissions we apologize: they are, of course, unintentional.If they are here they are due to thetime required for preparation, the varietyof sources approached, the number ofexpedients used. Some day some onewill send out a request for information toa hundred people. They will all replyin full by return mail. That same day theAngel Gabriel will undoubtedly blow along, loud blast of his horn. The millenniumwill have arrived.—R. H. F.)boME MONTHS AGO that trenchantHoosier writer, George Ade, in anarticle written for College Humor andquoted in the Magazine of Sigma Chi,had some caustic remarks to makeabout that individual known as thecollege trustee. It is more than aneven bet, though, that he did not meanthem, because of his own close relationswith his alma mater, Purdue University.Regardless of that, it mustbe admitted that the college trusteeoccupies an integral and importantpart in our system of higher education,be it private or tax-supported.Almost the only uniform-thing aboutthe organization of our higher institutionsof learning, one finds on lookinginto it, is the lack of uniformity.It might seem on first thought that acollege trustee is a college trustee, butsometimes they are regents, sometimesdirectors, governors, overseers, andwhat have you? It might seem that[3391By RUSSELL H. FITZGIBBONHanover, '24every college should have a president,but sometimes they have chancellors,and sometimes rectors, sometimes bothchancellors and presidents.Consequently it is rather difficult tomake a catalog of all the Phis on thegoverning boards of those institutionswhere we have chapters. A survey ofsuch boards of the (then) ninety-sevencolleges and universities in which wehave placed chapters revealed, however,the interestingly large total of165 members of the fraternity in suchconnections. Forty-one of these institutionshad no Phis on their governingboards. Hence, the 165 of them wereto be found on the boards of fifty-sixschools, an average of almost exactlythree Phis to the board.The forty-one schools without suchPhi membership were: Arizona, Stanford,Colorado, Colorado College,Colorado Agricultural College, Florida,Idaho, Northwestern, Purdue,Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, KansasAgricultural College, Tulane, Williams,Amherst, Michigan, Minnesota,Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska,Dartmouth, Cornell, Duke,North Dakota, Ohio State, Cincinnati,Denison, Oklahoma, Toronto, Oregon,Oregon State, Lehigh, Swarthmore,McGill, South Dakota, Texas, Utah,Washington and Lee, and Washington.Of these forty-one, eight are institutionsin which the 4 A 0 chapters havebeen chartered since the Birminghamconvention of 1914; Duke might wellbe added to the eight, since there werebut a quarter of a hundred initiatesthere in the classes of 1878 to 1883inclusive and no more until the classof 1921.It is very much the rule that Phisserve their alma maters, rather than