New Man, New Iowa

Fifteen years ago the State University of Iowa was an ordinary prairie university. Today it is climbing toward top rank among U. S. colleges. And last week the new Iowa got a new head. To succeed Eugene A. Gilmore, who retired last July at 69, the State Board of Education elected as the University's president a shy, handsome Chicago corporation lawyer named Virgil Melvin Hancher, 44.

Virgil Hancher was a dark-horse candidate, but no stranger to lowans. Born on an Iowa farm, he got his A.B. and law degree at the State University, where he was a high scholarship man and president of his class, two years ago was president of the Iowa Alumni Association. He also went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, got an M.A. there. No educator, he gave up a better-paid law practice to take the $12,-ooo presidency, was chosen to give Iowa an efficient business administration.

Many an educator envied Mr. Hancher his job. Through the middle of the University in Iowa City rolls the peaceful Iowa River. The University buildings are on a gigantic scale: its field house contains a full-sized practice football field; its indoor swimming pool is one of the largest in the U. S. On the river banks stand a Rockefeller-financed Medical College, a Rockefeller-financed theatre, a Carnegie-financed art building. Even more famed is Iowa's Child Welfare Research Station.

A change in Iowa's fortunes took place eleven years ago when famed Psychologist Carl Emil Seashore, grand old man of the University, decided that Iowa should go in for creative arts. In came Humanist Norman Foerster to head the School of Letters, Artist Grant Wood to teach in the School of Fine Arts. They believed that the way to learn about art was to produce it. Soon Iowa's husky pupils were enthusiastically painting, sculpting, writing, acting, composing. Scornful of second-hand scholarship, Iowa's teachers let students win their degrees by substituting for a traditional thesis an original novel, a painting, a performance in a play, a musical composition. Exclaimed Critic Edward J. O'Brien (Best Short Stories): "Iowa City is the Athens of America."

Last week lowans anxiously wondered how much help and encouragement President-elect Hancher would give to the University's arts program. Mr. Hancher would only say: "It is my personal opinion that creative effort has a proper place in a balanced fine arts program." Old Carl Seashore croaked: "A very fortunate appointment."

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