Out With Stout?

Since the University of Nevada is the only institution of higher learning in the state, anything that happens there is apt to make headlines. But not since its foundation 83 years ago have the headlines registered the bitterness they have shown in the past five years. Since he took over in 1952, President Minard W. Stout, 49, has been the center of so many political and academic storms that he now holds the distinction of being the most discussed figure in the state.

Onetime professor of education and principal of the University of Minnesota's laboratory high school, Stout has in many ways chalked up a remarkable record in Nevada. Through appropriations and bond issues, the state now gives the university three times as much money as it did in 1952. Gifts and grants are up from an average of $100,000 a year to more than $1,000,000. While only 49% of the faculty had Ph.D.s in 1952, today 65% do. Stout upped faculty salaries 68%, started a college of education, a junior college in Las Vegas, a graduate school, a school of nursing and a college of business administration. But in spite of all these accomplishments, the university is still living through some of the unhappiest years of its life.

Manageable Mediocrity. Stout first ran into trouble when he decided that the university should abolish entrance requirements for Nevada high-school graduates. He also did away with the Academic Council, which had played a part in forming university policy. To some faculty-men, Stout seemed not only highhanded; he also seemed a threat to academic standards. Especially critical was Biologist Frank Richardson, who in 1952 circulated among his colleagues an article by Historian Arthur Bestor Jr. attacking the brand of educational thinking that President Stout appeared to represent (TIME, June 15, 1953). To Stout, Richardson's act was the climax of a long record of insubordination. After a brief hearing, the five-man Board of Regents sacked Professor Richardson.

Though Richardson was later ordered reinstated by the State Supreme Court, his case snowballed. Author Walter Van Tilburg Clark (The Ox Bow Incident) accused the administration of "seeking to reduce the university to a manageable mediocrity," handed in his resignation as a lecturer in English. Economist Arthur L. Grey Jr. declared that the university was "in full retreat" from democracy, and Biologist Thomas Little resigned after accusing Stout of granting faculty raises on the basis of "favoritism."

In 1954 Sociologist Allvar Jacobson, in an open letter to the chairman of the Board of Regents, charged Stout with "inhuman and capricious treatment." Finally, in 1956, 300 students demonstrated in downtown Reno, hung their president in effigy, waved placards reading "Out with Stout." With no hearing at all, the administration expelled six student demonstrators only to have to back down in the face of public protest.

Next Question . . . By the time of the demonstration, the legislature had already appointed a special committee, headed by U.C.L.A. Political Scientist Dean E. McHenry, to investigate the university. While paying tribute to Stout's achievements ("[His] arrival had a tonic effect on the university"), the McHenry committee found that though he had never interfered with freedom of instruction, he had intimidated his faculty and interfered with its right to express opinions about university policy as a whole.

Early this year the legislature formally adopted the McHenry report, increased the Board of Regents to nine members in order to break the pro-Stout hold. Since the regents are elected, the State Supreme Court will still have to rule on whether the legislature's action is constitutional or not, but the action was nevertheless a severe blow for Stout. It was not to be the last: last week the annual meeting of the American Association of University Professors formally censured Stout's administration for violation of academic freedom and tenure. Next question for the university: Can it afford to keep on with a president who, however conscientious and dedicated, has managed to kick up the worst academic row in the state's history?

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