Prior to leaving the University of Michigan in 1950 with a newly awarded Ph.D. degree I was contacted by Dr. Hugh Waskom, Head of the Department of Psychology, about a faculty opening in the developmental psychology area. Little was said in our exchanges about research; FSU had not yet become a research institution, nor had any significant graduate programs been developed.

I drove through south Georgia in the early evening hours of April 4, 1950, arriving in warm spring-like Tallahassee near midnight. My interview with Dr. Waskom, and others, was scheduled for April 5th. Tallahassee in early April offered some marked contrasts to Ann Arbor: spring rather than late winter, green rather than winter brown vegetation, and warm sunshine rather than cold gray skies. The Spanish moss that could be seen by moonlight in the trees between Thomasville and Tallahassee made that portion of the trip especially interesting because in my previous travels I had not encountered Spanish moss.

Sometimes, evidence of the department's past might be revealed to a visiting prospect. Dr. Finner, the recently retired department head continued to occupy an office on the second floor of the old building. His forty-year collection of journals was stacked in all available spaces on the office floor. However disorganized he might have appeared to be, when we engaged in conversation about various published research reports he was able to go unerringly to the right stack and extract the proper journal and turn immediately to the paper we were discussing.

During my on-campus stay Dr. Waskom took me for an interview with the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Ed Walker, as well as with Associate Dean, Hugh Stickler, and Assistant Dean, Charles Davis (who in 1959 became president of Winthrop College where I became academic dean). I met informally with most of the members of the department: Theron Alexander, Howard Baker, Marcus Caldwell, Ralph Dreger, Sam Granich, Winthrop Kellogg, and Ralph Witherspoon. Perhaps Stewart Murray and Dan Kenshalo also arrived at Florida State in 1950. At any rate, these people were department members during my first year. Andy Sweetland's name should be added to the list. Shortly after my return to Ann Arbor the last snow of the season arrived. Soon thereafter I received from Dr. Waskom an offer of an appointment as assistant professor which I hastily accepted.

Florida State University in the 1950's.

In 1950 the University was emerging from its many years as the Florida State College for Women. There were some 500 students enrolled. Each year thereafter enrollment grew at a rapid rate; when I left the department in 1959 enrollment was near 9000 for the entire university. The 1950's were exciting years for all the young faculty whose previous teaching experience had been gained as graduate assistants. Inexperienced, young Ph.D.'s were attempting to build a university. The post-war expansion in higher education was underway across the country and was moving at such a pace that experienced college and university professors were in short supply. But the untested faculty members were undaunted by the challenge. Even old timers such as Hugh Waskom had no experience in building "from scratch" a doctoral program in psychology. Most of the faculty, therefore, probably repeated what we had experienced in our recently completed graduate programs. Among those graduate schools represented on the departmental faculty were: George Washington University, University of Michigan, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Indiana University, Johns Hopkins, University of Georgia, and Princeton University. Because many of the faculty members had spent three or four years in the military during World War II, we might have been a bit more mature than the typical new PhD.

Facilities

The campus of the University in 1950 had grown little beyond the facilities of its predecessor, the Florida State College for Women. Cows grazed contentedly in fields where athletic facilities are now located. Even President Doak Campbell could hardly have imagined what the campus would be in 1990.

In 1950, the department shared the old brick building on the University's entrance circle with the School of Education and Florida's higher education board. No one had sufficient space. During my first semester there my office consisted of a small table and chair in the office of Ralph Witherspoon's secretary. Wartime shortages still existed. I was furnished two very old, gray wood filing cabinets that still had military inventory numbers visible on each side. On-campus air conditioning existed only in President, Campbell's office and in the new IBM 650 computer lab. Psychology laboratories had not been built. Instruction almost uniformly was by lecture.

But energetic young professors were not deterred. Their sponsored research soon began to bring in funds that supported their efforts to build and equip laboratories and clinical facilities. And when the School of Education moved to its new building in the mid-1950's additional space became available for the department. For a short while our space needs were met. But not for long! The various departments and schools of the University were on the move. Throughout my nine years at Florida State University construction always seemed to be underway; a walk across campus required some caution because the hazards associated with installing new water and electric lines, moving dirt and hauling building materials, and streets and walks being constantly torn up were always to be reckoned with. But at the end of its first decade the University seemed to be only in the first phase of its expansion.

The Department's Academic Programs in the 1950's.

Department members were working hard in the early 1950's to develop programs appropriate for a state university. The old FSCW curriculum was being hastily modified. The old department had offered the usual array of undergraduate general, educational, and developmental psychology courses as well as some courses in measurement, personality, and social psychology. Although the department had offered majors to undergraduates it appeared to have given much attention to its service role to other programs such as those in teacher education and home economics.

In 1950, in addition to their twelve hours, or equivalent, teaching loads faculty members spent many hours each week planning the department's future. Program planning seemed to have focused principally on three major areas of instruction: clinical, experimental-physiological, and child-developmental, although other areas were receiving attention. The debates were lively! Agreements were sometimes long in coming. There were no departmental traditions shaping thinking and actions. University psychology departments may always have difficulty in presenting a united front to their students. A newly organized department surely faces even greater problems in this respect. However, at the end of its first university decade the department's graduate programs were gaining recognition and respectability among other graduate institutions across the country.

Resources for Teaching and Research

State appropriations for the University in the 1950's allowed for little beyond teaching. Salaries were low; by 1959 nine-month salaries for full professors were likely to be no more than $6500 - $8000. Faculty members who wished to pursue research interests--and most attempted to do so--might find funds at NIH or other agencies of federal government such as the Department of Education which, at that time, was part of HEW. On one occasion in the mid-1950's the department was awarded a grant of some $250,000, a very large grant at that time, by NIH as I recall, to establish a program in school psychology, one of the first such programs in the country. Department members enjoyed considerable success in their quest for research funds although the decade of the 1950's was not an affluent period for higher education. The 1960's and 1970's proved to be more prosperous years.

The department's research reputation in the 1950's probably rested most heavily on Winthrop Kellogg's work with the porpoise, Howard Baker's vision research, and Dan Kenshalo's physiological work. But papers by department members were being published in other areas: clinical, child developmental, counseling, and in other specialties.

The Department's Role in Advancing Psychology in the State and in the South

The presence of "old timers" in the department, people such as Winthrop Kellogg, Dick Husband, and for short periods John Nafe, provided models and sometimes guides for the younger staff. The entire department seemed to have been involved in promoting the affairs of the Florida Psychological Association. Several members, at the urging of Winthrop Kellogg visited Emory University on one occasion to participate in organizing the Southeastern Psychological Association. In the early 1950's members of the department began the practice of presenting papers at state and regional meetings as well as at the annual APA meeting. And occasionally the names of department members appeared on papers in the various journals of psychology.

Some of the People in the Department in the 1950's

During the 1950's faculty positions were available in universities across country; therefore, there was some turnover in the faculty during my stay, 1950-1959. And the flow-through of graduate students, who after short stay become identified with their department, added to that perception of movement of department members. Graduate students in the 1950's, mostly from the south, stayed the usual three to five years, received their degrees and went immediately to college or university positions or to some agency employing psychologists. I have met a number of those graduates on college and university campuses in South Carolina.

Two of the department's own early PhD's joined the FSU faculty, Drs. Wallace Kennedy and James Smith. Arguments about hiring one's own graduates were countered with "why surrender our best graduates to other institutions?"

Anyone old enough to have taught at Florida State University in 1950 is, from time to time, likely to enjoy remembering things as they were and the people who were once there. Last names of some of those I recall as department members in the 1950's were: Waskom, Terrell, Witherspoon, Alexander, Kennedy, Rychlak, Murray, Fuller, Sweetland, Caldwell, Greenspoon, Anderson, Baker, Kenshalo, Scarborough, Husband, Granich, J. Smith, Demming, Nelson, and Kellogg. And there were others.

Some General Observations

Today, Florida State appears to occupy an important place among the universities of the land. Whatever its status, it has been achieved over the forty-two years that difficulties have been working to make it merit the title. Departmental members of the 1950's will remember the many meetings of the university senate and faculty and long afternoons of heated debate about what a university should be. One can imagine the response to the liberal arts faculty when the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management proposed to offer courses in "meat cutting". Generally, courses proposed by the Psychology Department resulted in little debate.

The first PhD degree awarded by Florida State University was in Chemistry, if my memory is correct. And the second was in psychology. Faculty members were proud that the department had reached that first goal.

It was forty years ago when I first arrived at the front entrance to Florida State University's campus. After nine lively years there I spent another busy nine years as academic dean and vice president at Winthrop College, followed by two years as resident at Salisbury (Md) State College, and then thirteen years as president of another state college, Francis Marion College (SC) where I retired in 1983. On my occasional visits to Florida State University I have been greatly impressed by its growth. And over the years I have been pleased to have had a large number of PhDs from Florida State University join the faculties of the institutions I have served. I am quite proud to have been a member of that departmental team of the 1950's and am enormously pleased with FSU's current status in higher education.