There is a certain degree of logic -- laced with a strong dash of irony -- that the School of Journalism and Mass Communication is moving into Franklin (nee Cluff) Hall.

And, the logic and irony both emanate from the same starting point: William A. Cluff, whose name is chisled into the upper facade of our new home.

Directly or indirectly, Cluff was responsible for the birth of the Kent Stater and the establishment of the School of Journalism.

In the early 1920s, Cluff was a young businessman in Kent who was building a regional reputation. By 1924, he had been named president and treasurer of the highly prosperous Mason Tire and Rubber Co. in the city. He also was well known as chairman of the Portage County Republican Party.

Shortly after his appointment as Mason's president, he was named a member of the Kent State College Board of Trustees.

And it's here that the logic, irony and intrigue begin to kick in and that our story really begins.

Cluff and fellow Trustee, David Ladd Rockwell, had long wanted to fire the venerable John E. McGilvrey as president of Kent State.

William A. Cluff	They didn't like his aggressiveness and boosterism, his heavy promotion of the college -- and himself. Most of all, they didn't like his arguments with state legislators and officials at Ohio State University over Kent State's small state subsidy and its two-year degree status. Cluff and Rockwell, however, didn't have the votes to oust McGilvrey, who was very popular with most faculty, students and graduates. Until January 1926, that is. With two of the five Trustee positions vacant, Cluff and Rockwell voted to fire the president while he was in England arranging a student exchange with Cambridge University. His "unpardonable affront," as the Board charged? He didn't tell them he was leaving the country. The state board of education appointed Ohio inspector of teacher training, T. Howard Winters, as interim president of the now-split college. Howard started a brief, but spirited, reign of terror.
President John McGilvrey
T. Howard Winters (Photos from Kent State University)

Faculty and staff who had supported McGilvrey were let go. Winters and state officials called for stricter grading standards and a dress code. Cluff and Rockwell dominated the Board of Trustees.

The purge of McGilvrey-related phenomena was exhaustive, even down to the nickname of the Kent athletic teams. For some 15 years, they had been called the Silver Foxes because McGilvrey raised the animals on his farm. The trustees ordered the name changed. A contest in 1926 resulted in the winning entry: Golden Flashes.

To make matters worse, only two buildings were constructed on the Kent State campus, and, as KSU historian Phillip Shriver commented in his book, The Years of Youth, "it was not coincidence that the buildings were named the David Ladd Rockwell Library and the William A. Cluff Teacher Training Building."

The growing furor on campus and the naming of the buildings brought the Akron Beacon Journal to editorialize in 1927 that what the university needed was "competent men versed in the problems of education, untied by politics and not athirst for the glory of having their names carved on expensive buildings."

Students were outraged over just about everything that was occurring. Several of them decided to protest by starting a weekly newspaper to oppose Winters' policies and to support those of the deposed McGilvrey.

On Feb. 25, 1926, the first issue of the unauthorized Searchlight was issued. Editor, Walter Jantz, and Associate Editor, Margaret Hayes, published a lively sheet.

Each week, there was new criticism of Interim President Winters and the state's role in governing the college. The Searchlight's editors were questioned by state officials, but they promised continued vigilance and pointed commentary.

Winters and his cronies put up with that vigilance and commentary until July 22, 1926 and then suspended Jantz and forbade publication of the paper.

On July 29, 1926, when readers went to pick up their papers, they found a new publication waiting for them: The Kent Stater, a university started, sponsored and financially supported publication edited by -- strangely enough -- Margaret (Peg) Hayes, former associate editor of the now defunct Searchlight.

Winters' full time successor as president, David Allen Anderson, wasn't that happy with what he had heard about the Searchlight, some of the Stater's editorials about his policies, or the sarcastic, vitriolic broadsides he endured from another short-lived unauthorized student newspaper, the Red Flame (edited by, who else, Peg Hayes?).

By fall 1927, the first full time professor of journalism was hired to teach students "proper" journalistic practices. The roots of the present day School of Journalism and Mass Communication had been planted.

Cluff meanwhile was having problems. The new president didn't appreciate the fact that Cluff had voted against his appointment. In addition, Cluff's once financially strong business was faltering badly under his leadership, and his health had begun to get worse. Finally, in late 1928, he resigned from the Board of Trustees.

So, how did the William A. Cluff Teacher Training Building become Franklin Hall?

President McGilvrey's supporters had long memories.

In 1934, eight years after he had been fired by the Board of Trustees, the still-popular McGilvrey was invited back to campus to head up its alumni and fund-raising programs.

Walter Jantz (left), editor of the outspoken Searchlight, was suspended from school. His associate editor, Peg Hayes, was the first editor of the college-supported Kent Stater. Photos from the Chestnut Burr

Friends even tried to get a new Board of Trustees to rename the Cluff Training Building to McGilvrey Hall. President McGilvrey, surely appreciating the irony therein but also aware of the political dangers, declined. Five years later, a new science building would be named after him.

Eventually, in 1956 the Cluff Teacher Training Building had outlived its usefulness. The new University School had been built on Summit Street (it's now the Michael Schwartz Student Services Building), and all teacher training activities moved over there.

The Cluff building was renovated, became the new home of the College of Business, and was renamed Franklin Hall, after the first name of the city.

So, in a nutshell Cluff's political shenanigans directly or indirectly caused the birth of the Kent Stater and the start of Kent JMC.

And, in a year we'll be moving into the building he named after himself.

Read about the history of Kent JMC

Read about the history of student media

Return to JMC news page