[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 36 (Friday, March 25, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    TRIBUTE TO DR. WILSON H. ELKINS

 Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to bring to our 
colleagues' attention the remarkable legacy of Wilson H. Elkins who 
served the people of Maryland and the Nation for 24 years as President 
of the University of Maryland. Dr. Elkins passed away March 17 at the 
age of 85.
  Dr. Elkins was a native of Texas, and a graduate of the University of 
Texas with both B.A. and M.A. degrees. Wilson Elkins was both an 
outstanding student and star athlete. He earned eight varsity letters 
in football, basketball, and track, as well as election to Phi Beta 
Kappa and served as president of the Student Government Association and 
captain of the basketball team. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford 
University where he earned both the B. Litt. and Ph.D. degrees.
  After teaching at the University of Texas and serving as president of 
several colleges in the State, Wilson Elkins was named the 21st 
president of the University of Maryland in 1954 where he served during 
a period of tremendous growth and rebuilding of the university's 
academic programs.
  Mr. President, the leadership of Dr. Wilson Elkins during a period of 
such remarkable growth and change laid the basis for the outstanding 
reputation the University of Maryland and its component colleges, 
campuses, divisions and other units enjoy today. Dr. Elkins was indeed, 
``a lifelong champion of an educated citizen'' as the president of the 
University of Maryland's University College said. For these 
achievements, thousands of Marylanders and indeed our whole Nation are 
grateful.
  Mr. President, on Monday, March 28, a memorial service for Dr. Wilson 
Elkins will be held in the University of Maryland university chapel in 
College Park. I ask that several editorials and obituaries commending 
the accomplishments of Dr. Elkins be reprinted in the Record at this 
point.
  The material follows:

                [From the Baltimore Sun, Mar. 19, 1994]

                            Wilson H. Elkins

       Lyndon Johnson called him ``Bull,'' an apt nickname for 
     Wilson Homer Elkins. He picked up the moniker as a star 
     athlete at the University of Texas, and when he came to 
     College Park in 1954 to succeed Harry Clifton ``Curley'' Byrd 
     as president of the University of Maryland, Dr. Elkins needed 
     a bull's strength and single-mindedness.
       The university's academic accreditation was threatened 
     because Byrd had emphasized athletics over scholarship. 
     Restoring a healthy balance was one of football star Elkins' 
     first moves. It infuriated the state's sports establishment. 
     But a year later, accreditation was reaffirmed, and 
     construction began on a new library.
       Wilson Elkins guided the university for 24 years. He was 
     not wildly popular with students, who demonstrated, occupied 
     campus buildings, blocked U.S. 1 in College Park several 
     times and hurled epithets at him during Board of Regents 
     meetings. (Dr. Elkins was to say later that the decision to 
     close the university during the riots of 1970 was one of the 
     toughest of his presidency.) He never gave in to students, 
     never pampered and seldom glad-handed, even in Annapolis, 
     where legislators who were university alumni longed for the 
     glory days of Curley Byrd.
       During Dr. Elkins' remarkable tenure, enrollment and 
     budgets soared, schools of social work and architecture were 
     founded, the university was decentralized, research 
     activities multiplied and the Baltimore County campus 
     sprouted in a Catonsville corn field. ``It was not the 
     location I would have chosen if money had not been a 
     factor,'' Dr. Elkins was to say in his memoirs. But the UM 
     president, who had been a Rhodes Scholar as well as a 
     quarterback, understood the relationship of money and 
     politics. That was one of the reasons for Wilson Elkins' 
     professional longevity; he outlasted all of is fellow 
     presidents, handing out more than 150,000 degrees over 40 
     consecutive years as a college president in Texas and 
     Maryland.
       In retrospect, Maryland needed a bull in 1954--and in 1970. 
     All Wilson Elkins did for the state was drag its flagship 
     university into the 20th century. In the wake of his death at 
     85 this week, Marylanders can be thankful.
                                  ____


            [From the Baltimore Evening Sun, Mar. 22, 1994]

       Wilson H. Elkins, who died last week at age 85, was never a 
     popular figure at the University of Maryland, where he ruled 
     for 24 years as its president. Yet he changed the course of 
     UM dramatically. He saved it from becoming a backwater school 
     famous only for its football teams.
       What was the real ``Bull'' Elkins like? George H. Callcott, 
     a UM professor and resident historian of the institution, 
     edited Dr. Elkins' taped ``memoirs'' in 1981. Here's how 
     Professor Callcott sized up UM's best president:
       ``Wilson Elkins is a quiet, formal man, almost laconic, 
     with none of the volubility of the proverbial Texan. Vice 
     presidents who worked in adjacent offices for 20 years still 
     call him only `Dr. Elkins,' and so of course I do. He is 
     cautious in manner, slow to come to a firm opinion, but he 
     does not change easily when he has made up his mind.
       ``People still call him `The Bull' behind his back, to 
     refer to his square-jawed resolution. Powerful ambition and 
     total self-control lie behind his cool exterior, but after 
     these things he is a simple man, without much mystery.
       ``There are no hidden layers of meaning in his speech or 
     thinking. He is wary of intellectual constructs and clever 
     phrases. He approaches administration and life itself with a 
     direct, reasonable common sense. He knows exactly what he 
     knows with perfect clarity, and he doesn't worry much about 
     the rest. Here he stands . . . I think there is a unity to 
     his career and convictions: the curious unity of athletics 
     and education, or democracy and excellence. Colleges, like 
     the playing fields, provide opportunity; and in colleges, as 
     on the playing fields, mediocrity is weeded out and quality 
     is recognized. His first convocation address at Maryland was 
     entitled, `A Quantity of Quality,' and he has returned to 
     that theme repeatedly--democracy and excellence, both; 
     competition and victory.''
                                  ____


                [From the Baltimore Sun, Mar. 18, 1994]

            Wilson Elkins, Presided Over UM Nearly 25 Years

                           (By DeWitt Bliss)

       Wilson H. Elkins, president of the University of Maryland 
     during a quarter-century of social change and dramatic 
     growth, died of cancer early yesterday at the UM Medical 
     Center in Baltimore. He was 85.
       Dr. Elkins presided over the institution from 1954 to 
     1978--a period that saw its racial integration, Vietnam War 
     protests, the opening of the Baltimore County campus and 
     creation of a statewide university system.
       When he began his tenure, the university's reaccreditation 
     had been delayed by the Middle States Association of Colleges 
     and Secondary Schools. The Phi Beta Kappa honorary society 
     had refused to establish a chapter there.
       At his retirement, UM not only had a chapter of the 
     honorary society, but was a member of the Association of 
     American Universities--an organization composed of the 
     nation's major research universities. Faculty tenure, 
     sabbatical and governance systems had been established. 
     Schools of social work and architecture had been opened, a 
     faculty club established, and a new library had been built.
       T. Benjamin Massey, president of the UM system's University 
     College, which also was established by Dr. Elkins, described 
     him as ``a lifelong champion of an educated citizen'' and ``a 
     leading force in higher education for almost three 
     decades''--and ``really the guy who built the modern 
     University of Maryland.''
       But Dr. Elkins himself, in a 1974 interview published in 
     College Management Magazine, discounted a suggestion in the 
     Washington Post that the University of the previous 20 years 
     was his creation. ``I've had something to do with it,'' he 
     said.
       Louis L. Kaplan, a former chairman of the university's 
     Board of Regents, described Dr. Elkins as a ``fundamentally 
     modest person'' who did not put on acts to show his 
     importance.
       ``He was one of the best presidents we ever had,'' Mr. 
     Kaplan said.
       Dr. Elkins built up not only the university, but its 
     standards of academic excellence. In 1961, UM refused 
     entrance to 144 graduates of Maryland high schools--the first 
     time such students who did not meet university standards had 
     not been admitted if their parents insisted.
       Retired Baltimore Circuit Judge Mary Arabian, a current 
     regent who also served during the Elkins years, described him 
     as a ``wonderful leader,'' and a ``remarkable'' and scholarly 
     man whose influence over the school continued into the 1990s.
       Within the past six months, she said, Dr. Elkins had 
     testified in opposition to a proposal before the regents--one 
     that was dropped in part because of his testimony.
       ``He was very effective,'' she said, ``You do not expect 
     someone to come back from the distant past.''
       Dr. Elkins' administration included the turbulent years of 
     student demonstrations, when Maryland students took over U.S. 
     1 three times between 1968 and 1972 in anti-war 
     demonstrations that eventually brought the National Guard to 
     the College Park campus.
       Dr. Massey said Dr. Elkins had ``a calm demeanor'' during 
     that era of protest, ``but was forceful when he had to be. He 
     consulted broadly but never shirked making the decision.''
       Born in Medina, Texas, Dr. Elkins was a 1932 graduate of 
     the University of Texas where he had served as president of 
     the student body, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and won eight 
     varsity letters in football, basketball and track.
       He also received a master's degree there and, as a Rhodes 
     Scholar, earned a bachelor's degree in literature and his 
     doctorate at Oxford University in England.
       Before coming to Maryland, he had been president in Texas 
     of San Angelo Junior College and Texas Western College, a 
     branch of the University of Texas.
       His first wife, the former Dorothy Blackburn, died in 1971.
       He is survived by his wife, the former Vivian Noh Andrews; 
     two daughters, Carol Neal of University Park and Margaret 
     Frost of Reading, Conn.; two stepsons, Bruce Andrews of New 
     York City and Tom Andrews of Lyons, Colo.; six grandchildren 
     and a great-grandson.
       A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. March 28, in 
     College Park Chapel.
       Memorial donations may be made to the Wilson Elkins 
     Professorship at the University of Maryland Foundation, 
     Metzerot Road, Adelphi 20783.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 18, 1994]

                 Ex-U-Md. President Wilson Elkins Dies

                            (By Bart Barnes)

       Wilson H. Elkins, 85, who served as president of the 
     University of Maryland from 1954 to 1978 and guided the 
     institution through a period of unprecedented growth and 
     change, died of complications related to cancer yesterday at 
     the University of Maryland Hospital in Baltimore.
       Dr. Elkins's presidency at Maryland spanned an era of 
     campus unrest and turmoil when many college chief executives 
     had a limited tenure in office. But he served longer than 
     anyone else at Maryland, and few college presidents elsewhere 
     matched his professional longevity.
       He began his presidency at a 7,000-student university with 
     an annual budget of $23 million, a strong football tradition 
     and weak academic credentials. The Middle States Association 
     of Colleges and Secondary Schools had threatened to withdraw 
     accreditation and Phi Beta Kappa, the academic honor society, 
     refused to authorize a chapter on the Maryland campus.
       On taking the helm at College Park, Dr. Elkins declared 
     that rebuilding the university's academic credibility would 
     be his primary mission. A year after he took office, the 
     Middle States Association reaffirmed its accreditation, and 
     construction began on a new library.
       During the 1960s, the physics department acquired a 
     cyclotron, and Phi Beta Kappa finally authorized a chapter. 
     The faculty was upgraded, and tenure and sabbatical systems 
     were developed. Maryland was admitted to membership in the 
     Association of American Universities, which includes the top 
     57 research universities in the country. Enrollment soared to 
     78,000, and the annual budget was more than $300 million.
       Dr. Elkins was born on a farm in West Texas, and he grew up 
     in San Antonio. He worked his way through the University of 
     Texas, where he had a partial athletic scholarship and won 
     letters in basketball, track and football (he played 
     quarterback).
       After teaching in Texas for a year, he won a Rhodes 
     Scholarship and spent three years at Oxford University in 
     England, receiving a doctorate in history and economics. 
     After oxford he taught at the University of Texas for two 
     years. Later he was president of the state junior college at 
     San Angelo and then president of what is now the University 
     of Texas at El Paso.
       His years at Maryland coincided with the baby boom 
     generation's coming of college age and an era of rapid 
     expansion at colleges throughout the nation. The University 
     of Maryland added a campus in Baltimore County and another 
     on the Eastern Shore and enlarged its overseas program to 
     accommodate swelling enrollment.
       This surge in enrollment, coupled with an unpopular war in 
     Vietnam, brought an era of turmoil and protest to campuses 
     everywhere. Dr. Elkins, stern and laconic with a reputation 
     as a no-nonsense administrator, later recalled this period as 
     the most unpleasant of his years as an educator.
       Protesting students periodically blocked Route 1, which 
     passes through the College Park campus. University offices 
     were seized, ceremonies disrupted and the National Guard was 
     called out.
       Dr. Elkins took a hard line towards the protestors. ``It is 
     very important for the maintenance of order that, when there 
     is an occupation of a building, that you suspend them and get 
     them out,'' he argued.
       Radical students, he once said, ``should be thrown off 
     every campus.'' In 1971, he blocked promotions for two 
     College Park faculty members who had protested the 
     suspensions of students involved in campus protest. But when 
     other faculty members threatened to resign unless Dr. Elkins 
     relented, he approved the promotions. When Dr. Elkins became 
     the target of obscene remarks in two campus publications, he 
     responded by banning the publications.
       He retired on June 30, 1978, less than 10 days before his 
     70th birthday, amid a storm of controversy over the 
     appointment of an avowed Marxist, Bertell Ollman, to head the 
     political science department at College Park.
       The appointment had been approved at all levels up to Dr. 
     Elkins's office. When politicians in the state found out 
     about it, they began to complain. After weighing the issue 
     for several weeks, Dr. Elkins took no action on the 
     appointment, and the decision fell to his successor, John S. 
     Toll, who turned Ollman down.
       In retirement, Dr. Elkins continued to participate in 
     university functions.
       His first wife, the former Dorothy Blackburn, died in 1971.
       Survivors include his wife, the former Vivian Noh Andrews 
     of College Heights Estates; two daughters from his first 
     marriage, Carol Neal of University Park and Margaret Frost of 
     Redding, Conn.; two stepsons, Bruce Andrews of New York and 
     Tom Andrews of Lyons, Colo.; and six grandchildren.

                          ____________________