Posted: 5:03 p.m.
Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015
Local History: MUM campus was community effort
By http://www.journal-news.com/staff/rick-mccrabb/" rel="nofollow - Staff Writer
MIDDLETOWN —
About the only thing that hasn’t changed
over the last 50 years was the winter weather.
On a bitterly cold morning on Jan. 28,
1965, Middletown residents, representatives from
Miami University, Ohio
Gov. James Rhodes and the Middletown
High School marching band
participated in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Miami University Middletown
campus.
The campus officially opened on Sept. 6,
1966, and in the 49 years since, it has seen tremendous expansion and student
enrollment. There were 1,426 students enrolled that first year, 822 daytime and
740 evening students. And today enrollment exceeds 2,900.
Dick Slagle, 89, then CEO of the Middletown
Area Chamber of Commerce, recalls delivering the podium he made to the ceremony
that was held near the University
Boulevard entrance.
“That was a big day for the community,” he
said. “Very memorable, very important.”
He
said more than $3 million was raised to bring MUM to the city by the Middletown community, a
large percentage coming from payroll deductions.
“It wasn’t like it was all paper companies
and Armco,” Slagle said of the financial support. “It was truly a community
effort.”
He said the leadership in the community saw
the value of bringing a regional campus — the first in the state — to the city.
Slagle frequently drives by the university
and his mind immediately flashes back 50 years. He can’t help but think of the
impact the university has had on the community.
Without MUM, Slagle said, there would be “a
big hole in the community. It has become a very important asset.”
Rod Nimtz, who has been affiliated with Miami University
since 1984, said Miami
started offering classes in the city in February 1959. The Academic Center
used Middletown High School classrooms in the late
afternoons, evenings, and on weekends.
Beginning with 147 students enrolled in
nine classes, by 1963 there were more than 700 enrolled in 57 classes, with
plans for offering 75 classes in 1964. But the growth of the Academic Center
presented a two-fold challenge. First, the growing number of students in the
Middletown City Schools put classroom space at a premium and it was impossible
for Miami to offer daytime classes during the
week which limited the number of classes as well as the number of students Miami could serve.
The first student to enroll at MUM was
Robert C. Cordray II, of Middletown,
whose father was news director at WPFB radio station. Cordray, 66, who is
retired and living in Butler, Pa.,
took classes for two years at MUM, then transferred to the Oxford campus. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in
personnel and operations management in 1970 and his commencement speaker was
Neal Armstrong. He graduated on a Sunday and the next day he reported as a
Marine to Parris Island, S.C.
He remembers MUM’s humble beginnings.
“There were still boxes in many of the
classrooms and chairs were still in boxes,” he said. “It was a barren existence
for the first little bit.”
When the campus opened, Cordray said it was
almost “a curiosity” around town.
“It is not polite to say, but some people
said it was just a high school with ash trays,” he said. “That was not the case
in any stretch of the imagination. As it became part of the community, as it
was accepted and it grew, it became a center of culture, a center of learning.”
Armco eventually donated 135 acres to Miami, with additional
land and the Holiday House donated by the Armco Girl’s Foundation, to set the
site for the new campus. McGraw
Construction of Middletown had donated the engineering feasibility study, with
additional support coming from Middletown’s
Barnitz Fund for the preliminary drawings of the new campus.
On that day 50 years ago, the official
welcome from the City of Middletown
was delivered by William Donham, chair of the City Commission. Then Logan T.
Johnston, who was chairing the local efforts working with the Chamber of
Commerce, spoke of “The Middletown Dream.”
Acting Miami President Raymond Wilson
shared Miami’s thanks, and then, on behalf of Miami’s Trustees, announced the first classroom building
on the campus would be named for Johnston.
Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor John D.
Millett, who had been Miami’s
president during the planning for the new campus, spoke next, and then the
official turning of the first shovelfuls of earth took place. Then Rhodes
brought greetings from the state, speaking of Ohio’s vision for higher education in the
future.
Perry Richardson, senior director of
marketing for Miami, called the groundbreaking
“an important day for education in Ohio.”
Nimtz, now director of the Voice of America
Learning Center in West Chester, said MUM
brought more than buildings and educational opportunities to the city. He
mentioned major culture resources, the library, artist series, and a venue to
host community events such as Middletown Symphony concerts and the Chamber Expo.
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