Campus celebrates 75th
anniversary
By Ed De La Garza
Daily Cougar Staff
The months of preparation are finally over
as the University celebrates its 75th anniversary today. The festivities
begin at 11:30 a.m. and last through
2:30 p.m. at Cullen Family Plaza.
Stephen Edinger/The Daily
Cougar
Seventy-fifth anniversary
banners adorn the Ezekiel Cullen Building on Tuesday. It will be the site
of the University's official celebration from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. today.
Those wishing to take part in the celebration
will receive caritas, a flower or a 75th anniversary Coke bottle to present
to someone deserving
recognition for service to the University.
In June 1927, Edison Ellsworth Oberholtzer,
then the superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, and
Hugh Roy Cullen realized their
dream of providing an affordable college
education to as many people as possible.
But the University actually started out
as Houston Junior College, under the supervision of HISD. It didn't have
a campus then, so it held night classes
at San Jacinto High School. It did not
start offering day classes until 1934.
But since it shared space with a high school,
day classes were held at Second Baptist Church for a year. In '35, it moved
those classes to South Main
Baptist Church, where it would stay until
'39.
By that time, the strain of sharing space
and having two separate campuses became so great that Cullen donated enough
money to build the
University's first building: the Roy Gustav
Cullen Memorial.
In Fall '39, HJC became the University
of Houston. Six years later, UH broke ties with HISD and prepared for its
first enrollment boom.
"Spring ('46) enrollment was 3,500," class
of '51 alumnus Welcome Wilson said. "The University announced that registration
for the fall semester was
would be at 10 a.m. at the gymnasium on
campus. (That) morning there were 10,000 people, four abreast. It was a
sight to behold."
UH depended heavily on the post-World War
II surge in enrollment, but some financial issues forced the University
to raise tuition — a move that
worked against its original mission.
Though then-UH Chancellor A.D. Bruce and
then-President Clanton Williams attempted to find ways to cut costs, it
became clear the University needed
to push for state support.
"It took substantial struggle in the legislature
to do it," said Philip Guthrie Hoffman, UH's president from '61 to '79.
"It finally became (happened) in
1963. As soon as we became a state university,
the enrollment was up very rapidly because of a highly reduced tuition."
Enrollment increased by 27 percent that
year, Hoffman said.
The University soon began its busiest period
of growth — expanding the campus and creating the UH System.
It was also during this time that the UH
athletics program earned most of its national recognition. The men's basketball
team played in what is
considered one of the greatest college
basketball games in NCAA history, taking on No. 1 University of California-Los
Angeles at the Astrodome in '68
— and winning.
But that period of growth and recognition
was just a sign of things to come. In recent years, the University has
reached for its goal of becoming one of
the premier research institutions in the
nation. It's a mission that continues today and is melded with UH's purpose.
"(Its purpose) is to serve the urban population
of Houston and to serve people who need a large city atmosphere in order
to thrive in terms of economic
values in terms of work available in a
larger city," Hoffman said. "Our No. 1 responsibility is to provide the
kind of quality that people deserve. We're
working hard to achieve that."
