IV
THE YEARS OF CHANCELLOR FRANKLIN D. MURPHY

As late as 1997 when Franklin Murphy returned to the Lawrence campus to address the founding meeting of KU’s chapter of the international studies fraternity Phi Beta Delta, he proclaimed with evident feeling that his education would not have been complete without the year he spent in Germany’s famed University of Göttingen. Whenever there was an opportunity he would let it be known how highly he valued the experience ha had gained during that year in Germany.

As chancellor of the university from 1951 to 1960, he led the way for the university’s growing involvement in international programs. He took a strong personal interest in projects and programs. He accepted and retained throughout his years as chancellor the chairmanship of the American Universities Field Staff. In 1958 he called for a study of the teaching of foreign languages, a report that attracted a good deal of attention as it justified the strengthening of the foreign language requirement for liberal arts and sciences students at KU. But he also sought to direct the university toward a broader and therefore possibly more lasting vision. To this end he appointed in 1959 a special committee to study the university’s role in world affairs. Both then and now that committee’s report stands out as a fitting capstone to this chancellor’s leadership in international education, both at the University of Kansas and nationwide.

When Murphy was named dean of the KU medical school in 1947 he was, at the age of 31, the youngest dean ever of a medical school in the country. He was 35 when he moved to Lawrence and the chancellor’s chair, again the youngest person in such a position. He had won national acclaim for his original program of support to medically underserved areas in the state; he was soon nationally known (and he knew how to project himself and his achievements).

When the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, for the first time ever, invited the Association of American Universities to send a delegation of university presidents to Moscow for an exchange of views, Murphy was one of the six United States delegates chosen for this groundbreaking visit. The travel costs for this journey were assumed by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Carnegie’s president John Gardner accompanied the group. Gardner was impressed with Murphy and, after the trip to the USSR, invited him to be the United States co-chair of the Council on Higher Education in the American Republics (CHEAR), another Carnegie-supported venture. Its aim was to bring together ten rectors of Latin American universities and a like number of their counterparts from the United States, to exchange views and help to strengthen higher education throughout the hemisphere.

It was on the first tour of the CHEAR presidents and rectors that Murphy met Rodrigo Facio Brenes, the rector of the University of Costa Rica; the man, the university he headed and the small country it served intrigued Murphy almost instantly.

Differing from other Latin American countries, Costa Rica had enjoyed a history markedly free from recurring violence. But in the early twentieth century its economy was still almost entirely based on agriculture, with the United States-owned United Fruit Company playing a major (and not merely economic) role. A university (the University of Santo Tomas) had been started in 1843 but had closed its doors in 1888 for lack not only of funds but also teachers and students.

The Spaniards had controlled the area between Mexico and present-day Panama as a Captaincy-general, with its seat in Guatemala City. There they had also founded a university (San Carlos, in 1676) and it survived through the centuries, revolutions, civil wars and all. Costa Rica was more peaceful, but it was also clearly a backwater.

In the 1940’s improvements of the harbor facilities at Limon (on the Caribbean coast) and the beginnings of electrification brought some increase in Costa Rica’s interaction with the outside world. Among those from the United States who became visitors were biologists interested in the flora and fauna of the tropical forest. Two of these visitors were E. Raymond Hall, the director of KU’s museum of natural history, and his colleague Edward Taylor, a world-renowned herpetologist commonly known as “Snakes” Taylor. Hall called on the rector of the university and suggested an agreement for the exchange of scientists between Kansas and Costa Rica.

The rector followed up and raised the matter in a letter to Chancellor Malott. While this letter has not been located, Malott’s reply indicates that Rector Fernando Baudrit credited Hall with the suggestion and also indicated that it had been Hall who had specifically named two prospects: Maude Elliott, and assistant professor of Spanish, and Taylor, the herpetologist.

It is worthy of note that Malott’s reply was entirely in keeping with the traditional approach to international education: it is all up to the individual. Both Taylor and Elliott were already planning to visit Costa Rica again this summer; all Baudrit had to do was talk to each of them and ascertain their interest in spending some time in San Jose. If it came to an agreement between one or both of the KU teachers and the University of Costa Rica, it would behoove the KU person to find out if KU could spare him or her. That decision would be his, Malott’s, based on the dean’s recommendation. If it was possible to spare one or both, Malott would request that the Board of Regents grant leave without pay—it would be up to UCR to pay them. For the rector’s convenience, Malott supplied the current salaries of the two KU professors. But an agreement to exchange professors could not be considered at this time: KU lacked the funds to finance such an agreement, and given the large number of students, could not commit itself to grant any leaves.

There is no indication that either Facio or Murphy was aware of this (or any other earlier) contact. Facio sought Murphy’s advice and assistance in his efforts to make the University of Costa Rica (established in 1940) into the kind of institution he had known as a student in the United States. Differing from the traditional universities, such as Peru’s San Marcos and Guatemala’s San Carlos, Costa Rica had a School of General Studies, comparable to the first two years of a liberal arts college in the United States, and plans were well advanced for a campus, with a central library and administrative offices. But the faculty consisted largely of professional people who regarded university teaching as a part-time occupation. A number of them looked at involvement with the university as a stepping-stone for political ambitions.

Costa Rica appealed to Murphy because the university was more modern than any other he had seen in Latin America. The country’s new constitution did away with its army and committed Costa Rica to the support of education. The nation’s basic document mandated that at least ten percent of the money annually allocated to the ministry of education had to go, without any conditions attached, to the university. To Murphy who was getting increasingly frustrated by the never-ending battle to increase what his state’s legislature was willing to spend on higher education, Costa Rica had a decided advantage. But it is also undeniable that Facio and Murphy had developed a genuine sense of community of interest and personal friendship.
In a four-page letter to Facio, Murphy projected his vision of the future cooperation of the two universities and the role he thought the two chief executives ought to play:

Dear Rodrigo: — I have not communicated with you for some weeks, but this does not mean that I have not been busy on our joint project to bring the life of the University of Costa Rica and that of the University of Kansas closer together.

Briefly let me outline the way my thinking has developed in this matter, and tell you what success we have achieved so far. I should add that my thinking continues to be modified by the restrictions as to mission that exist in the various agencies of the United States Government, the foundations, etc. (Let me add that these restrictions are completely unpredictable. For example, under the terms of the gift by Mr. Carnegie to the Carnegie Foundation, this Foundation must spend its money on projects which have to be in the specific self- interest of the United States. On the other hand, the ICA [International Cooperation Agency, the fore-runner of AID, the Agency for International Foundation] has, until recently, had a very rigid feeling that their responsibility is exclusively technological, not intellectual development. Etc., etc.) In any event, here is the basic plan which has always been related to the conversations which you and I have had.

The central point of this program is to stimulate the intellectual and scholarly development of the University of Costa Rica and the University of Kansas, and at the same time develop personal as well as professional relationship of lasting value between the staff, faculty and students of these two institutions. This program has been arbitrarily divided into four parts. Of course, all four are inter-related.

Part One consists of the development of a “Junior Year Abroad” program between the University of Costa Rica and the University of Kansas. This program will be financed by the International Educational Exchange Service of the United States Department of State as authorized by the Congress of the United States. It will be the only such program in Central America.

The second part of the over-all program involves a project designed to bring to Costa Rica over a period of four years ten of the most able younger full-time members of the faculty of the University of Kansas and their wives, as well as at least two chief administrative officers (deans). The Carnegie Foundation has made a grant that will permit this project to go forward starting this fall (September 1959).

The third phase of the program is a project designed to bring selected (by you) members of the full-time faculty of the University of Costa Rica to the University of Kansas for whatever length of time may be required for such persons to get either the Master’s or the Ph.D. degree. . . . [I]n the beginning at least, such persons would be selected from the various sciences (Biology, Geology, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, etc.) I have a letter from ICA indicating their real interest in such a program and requesting a proposal. I have [also] talked to Mr. Wolf, of the Ford Foundation, and have sensed a sympathetic interest in him concerning this phase of the program.

The fourth project has to do with the opportunity for leaders in Costa Rica and in the United States, outside the universities, to visit the two countries and to work, or at least spend time, with their counterparts in the other country. I have talked with the heads of … various operations [in this region] and they are enthusiastic about the idea and I am sure would be willing to put up money.

The net result of such a program, spread over a four-year or five-year period, would be to develop, in depth, an understanding between the Central United States and Costa Rica of an unprecedented type. It could set a pattern for international relationships not only in Latin America but also in all parts of the world, and of course both the University of Kansas and the University of Costa Rica would be substantially strengthened in many aspects. You and I have a lot of talking and planning to do when I come to San Jose in July.

As this letter indicates, the junior year was already set to go, largely due to the efforts of Seymour Menton, a young (but already tenured) member of the Spanish department who would take the first grupo de Kansas to San Jose the following February.

Murphy shared his enthusiasm for Costa Rica and the potential he perceived in a continuing relationship between KU and UCR with his friend John Gardner at the Carnegie Corporation. Gardner told him that, if KU could send him a truly novel approach, he could almost guarantee support from his foundation. But the Carnegie board met only quarterly and would next do so the following week. To obtain board approval, he, Gardener, would need to have the proposal in hand within three days.

Murphy had related his exchanges with Facio to George Waggoner (who had succeeded Paul Lawson as dean of the College in 1954). By coincidence the Waggoners and the Hellers came to live across the street from each other; equally unplanned, I had been elected to the College Administrative Committee, a body that had rarely met under Dean Lawson but that became a virtual steering committee of the College faculty under the new dean. In 1957, Waggoner had brought me into his office as associate dean (the title was new and for several more years I was the only person in the College holding it). George came to share much of his concerns and aspirations with me—and that included what Murphy had told him about his contacts with CHEAR and with Facio. But both of us were still taken by surprise when, late one Saturday evening, Murphy appeared at a party at which both the Waggoners and my wife and I were present, pulled George and me aside and told us that we had to get to work—at once—and produce something that he could send to Gardner as soon as possible.

I had a typewriter at home; our five-year old son was staying overnight at a friend’s house. George and I spent the rest of the night in my study where I took notes as he developed a series of alternatives. The result was the Costa Rica faculty project, which the Carnegie Corporation supported for the next six years.
What was novel—or at least different—about the project was that is was designed not for the academic specialist or the prospective employee of what later came to be labeled “multi-national” enterprises but for academics who were not Latin Americanists but were willing to learn about Latin America (and whose spouses were prepared to take part in the project). The participants selected (husbands and wives) would spend June and July in an eight-week intensive course of beginning Spanish, and would then spend the month of August in Costa Rica with, for all practical purposes, a working relationship with counterparts identified by the University of Costa Rica. One purpose of this interaction was the development of a plan of activities which the visitor from Kansas could carry out on his or her next visit, three moths during the following summer. In the intervening time months the Kansas participants were expected to continue with their study of Spanish.

Among the volunteers for the first group were two deans, Jim Surface of the School of Business and George Waggoner. Everybody in this group returned from the first stay in San Jose full of praise for the little country, the friendliness of the ticos (the nickname Costa Ricans use for themselves), and the opportunities that they could see for themselves and for the two universities.

The first eleven students to spend their junior year in Costa Rica arrived in San Jose on Lincoln’s birthday in 1960 and, except for a two-week vacation trip to Panama in July, remained there until the end of Costa Rica’s academic year in November. Meanwhile four junior faculty members from UCR, all in the sciences, had taken up residence in Lawrence to pursue doctoral work at the University of Kansas. Suddenly there was so much traffic between Kansas and Costa Rica that it was fortunate that some years earlier a member of our Spanish department who had taught in Costa Rica and married a Costa Rican had been designated as an honorary vice consul and could issue visas from his home in Lawrence. Seymour Menton, the Junior year program’s first director, acclaimed the Kansas–Costa Rica relationship in the Modern Language Journal (October 1961) as “truly cultural penetration in depth.”

But Latin America was not the only direction in which KU’s international activities developed. The passage of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in September 1958 introduced a new dimension in curricular planning by inviting applications for federal support of area centers.

Fortunately NDEA’s concept for area centers included building up appropriate strengthening of library holdings and the addition of catalogers capable of processing publications in “unusual” languages. With Murphy’s interest in libraries and the imaginative, also critical, leadership of Robert Vosper, probably the best director of libraries KU has ever had, KU had already made some progress, especially in Russian materials.

Earlier Oswald Backus had scored a master stroke when, on a visit to Moscow, he discovered in a second-hand book store (one of the few trade areas that had not been nationalized) a complete run of Russian statute books from Ivan the Terrible to the end of the Tsarist regime. The store’s owner told him that a professor from the University of California wanted to purchase the set for his university and had written to the librarian there for authorization to do so. Backus asked if the man would sell to him (for KU) if he could produce the money before his west coast competitor could get a reply from his colleague back home. The Russian agreed that he would sell to the first person who could pay him.

Backus proceeded to the American embassy where one of his Yale classmates was stationed and was allowed to use a phone there for a call to the University of Kansas. Fortunately the chancellor was at his desk. Murphy listened to Backus, asked how much money was involved. After Backus had told him, Murphy said he would have an answer the following day, in care of Backus’s friend at the embassy. Two days later a letter of credit in the amount involved had arrived at the embassy in the diplomatic pouch. The next day Backus went back to the bookstore. After the storekeeper had converted the letter of credit, he packed the huge shipment in a number of crates and shipped them to the United States, at his expense. Years later Backus learned that the letter of credit, issued by the Riggs National Bank in Washington, had been purchased by Judith Harris Murphy, Franklin’s wife. It was not the only time that the Murphys assisted the university out of their own pockets—and without publicity.

The introduction of the area centers through the NDEA did not come as a surprise to George Waggoner. His Ph.D. was in English but his approach to literature anticipated the “area” concept: his dissertation dealt with Shakespeare but with the Bard’s perception and rendition of every-day life. In World War II Waggoner had been in the navy language program, studying Malay; he recalled that instruction in Malay history, geography and culture was an integral part of what he was taught. (He never had an opportunity to apply what the navy taught him.)

Thus he was predisposed to interdisciplinary perspectives. Even before he assumed his decanal duties he let it be known that he was very interested in KU’s Western Civilization Program, a program that does not “belong” to any department, yet is required of all students in the College. One of his earlier proposals as the new dean for change in the College was the revitalization of “Western Civ.” Hard on its heels came an increase in the foreign language requirement from ten to sixteen hours. But even before he had assumed the deanship he had recognized that humanities and social science departments would not add area-oriented faculty members unless there was a tangible inducement. George had given me the responsibility for the assembling of the College budget; after clearing the matter with Murphy, he instructed me to include three lines for area programs, each to be funded at $20,000: East Asia, Latin American, and Soviet and Slavic. In those days changes of this kind were rarely taken up separately by the Board of Regents; Chancellor Murphy made sure that the approval of the three area program would be noted—it signified, he advised the Regents, that KU had made a strategic decision: it would not undertake to expand all over the globe, only into the three identified areas. The board was not asked to rule on this self-denial but Murphy, his successors and their associates referred to it whenever there was pressure to expand into other areas.

Two of the area programs already had committed leaders, both historians: Backus for the Soviet and Slavic area, and George Beckmann for the East Asian area. Both had, almost from the moment of their arrival, clamored for instruction in the principal languages of their respective areas. The third area, Latin America, weighed in with a request for at least one full-time faculty member in Portuguese. Russian and Japanese had been taught occasionally, with the department of Germanic (!) languages sheltering the instructors, usually persons who were hired without expectation of continuity. Backus and Beckmann pleaded for departments that would teach Slavic and Oriental languages respectively. No self-respecting language teacher, so they argued, would come into a situation in which his language was a mere appendix to another department’s curriculum.

But it was not easy to find qualified teachers of the “unusual” languages and more difficult to retain them. The College set up departments of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Oriental Languages (later renamed East Asian Languages and Cultures) but in their early days both suffered from high rates of faculty turnover and sharp internal divisions about methods of foreign language teaching.

Beckmann wanted three languages to be available, Chinese, Japanese and Korean but only a modest beginning in Chinese could be realized. It may have been difficult to allocate positions for the unusual languages at the time that the increase in the College’s foreign language requirement caused an increased need for instructional staff in the traditional foreign languages.

Some relief in the traditional foreign languages came with the introduction in 1960 of the summer language institutes, a concept originated by “Toni” Burzle. He proposed that we arrange for some of the students who had shown themselves capable in the first two semesters of German to do the work of the remaining two semesters during the summer—in the country where the language was spoken.

Tony had established the necessary contacts in Holzkirchen, a small town south of his native city of Munich, and was ready to put the plan into operation when George Waggoner persuaded him that the idea was so good that it should be applied, at the very least, to French and Spanish as well. Waggoner also arranged for some scholarship support for the three programs and placed the entire undertaking under the supervision of the College office. Beginning in 1960 KU sent upwards of 120 students each summer to locations in Germany, France and Spain. This is still done today and Eutin, near Kiel in northern Germany, which had replaced Holzkirchen as the principal site for the German program, is now officially a sister city of Lawrence, Kansas—a relationship that enjoys considerable public support in both communities.

These summer programs would, of course, have been impossible without the availability of air travel. Prior to the introduction of jet planes trans-Atlantic flights required re-fueling stops in Newfoundland and Iceland, frequently making it a ten- to twelve-hour trip. Jet ravel made it possible to cross the ocean in about half that time. Technological advances produced larger planes; in 1960, we had to impose a limit of 120 students (the capacity of the plane we had could charter) for the three summer language institutes in Europe; five years later a larger summer group filled only a part of a scheduled airliner.

The decade of the fifties thus saw a noticeable change in student traffic, both into and out of the United States. It is interesting to contrast the patterns of study abroad that had prevailed at the beginning with the broader and more varied ranges of activity that could be found at the end of the same period.
A good overview of the more traditional approach can be found in a survey of such programs prepared for Michigan State University by two of its faculty members and published in 1955. The first thing that is striking is that there is no public institution included in the survey. All programs described were operated by private colleges, mostly in the northeast, and mostly undergraduate in nature. Most of them housed their students together: Smith College actually owned a house in Paris; Stanford rented hotels that were no longer functioning as such and—importantly—were some distance from any major city. The authors considered it necessary to identify those programs that attempted to expose the students to the language of the host country: most arranged for all instruction to be offered in English, frequently by members of the college’s own faculty. In general, the impression is that the purpose was to provide a modern version of the “grand tour,” that common practice of English public school graduates in the 18th and 19th century, but under supervision designed to discharge the in loco parentis function that characterized American higher education before the 1960’s.

The Fulbright program targeted the individual student or scholar. In the State department the cultural and educational affairs office saw merit in junior year programs—without, however, having a specific type of program in mind. The Association of American Universities, speaking for the country’s research universities, argued for increased support of area specialists; NAFSA, the organization of foreign student advisers, sought more support for students from other countries. The major funding organizations interested in furthering international aspects of higher education (mainly Ford and Carnegie but also more recent approvals on the scene, such EWA [Education and World Affairs], of which Franklin Murphy was a member) perceived the need for a clearer definition of the goals. Out of their discussions there arose a national committee on “The University and World Affairs,” to be headed by President Morrill of the University of Minnesota. Murphy had participated in the discussions that resulted in the creation of the Morrill committee and decided that, whatever the advantages of a national perspective on the questions, it was appropriate, perhaps even necessary, that individual universities address the questions in their own contexts. As he was wont to do he discussed his idea with George Waggoner and asked him to assume the chair of the committee he expected to form. George turned him down, arguing that he could contribute more as dean of the College than as the chair of a committee appointed by the chancellor—and suggested that Murphy should ask me to chair the committee. In retrospect this may have been what Murphy had intended—at least he said so in later years.

The committee consisted of some people who were identified with international programs but a majority of persons whose professional and personal concerns were not primarily oriented toward the emerging global education scene. In alphabetical order they were:

Lester R.C. Agnew — an English scholar of broad interests who, while teaching history of medicine at the KU Medical Center, chose to live on the Lawrence campus in one of the large residence halls.

J.A. “Toni” Burzle — chair, Germanic languages and literatures; his leading role in the establishment and maintenance of scholarly student exchanges has been discussed earlier.

Francis H. Heller — professor of political science, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (chair of the committee).

Charles D. Michener, professor of entomology, research professor with the Institute of Tropical Studies (Costa Rica).

Raymond G. O’Connor, professor of American diplomatic and military history (secretary of the committee).

Alvin Schild, professor of education (social studies) and political science.

William P. Smith, professor and chair of the department of electrical engineering.

James R. Surface, professor and dean of the school of business.

Charles K. Warriner, professor of sociology, recent Fulbright scholar in the Philippines.

W. Clarke Wescoe, professor of pharmacology and dean of the School of Medicine

Murphy made it clear that he wanted a long-range view, not an assessment of programs in place. The committee responded with a brief but eloquent report. But by the time the report was submitted, Murphy was in the process of cleaning out his desk, headed for the University of California at Los Angeles. Luckily for the future of international programs at the University of Kansas, his successor as chancellor was one of the signatories of the report, the dean of the School of Medicine, W. Clarke Wescoe.

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