Kent State students were in an uproar.

They were angry about the college dress code, grading standards and state interference in college affairs. They wanted more autonomy and student input into decision making at the school. Some called for a day-long strike to rally student support.

Others quietly established an underground newspaper to protest administration policies. When the college president struck back by suspending the newspaper's editor and banning the paper, other students quickly launched a second unauthorized paper to continue the attack.

State officials question editors

There were rumors of "state officials" coming to campus and grilling the newspaper's editors about the leaders of the disaffected students. The college seemed to be in turmoil.
This strident battle over student rights was not taking place in the 1960s or 1970s, however. This was Kent State College in 1926. And the newspaper battles were a critical catalyst to development of journalism education here.

Before formal journalism education ever started at Kent State in 1927, there were student publications. Some would argue, convincingly, that journalism education was started because of the student publications.

But that gets ahead of our story.

Setting the scene, 1910-1929

As early as October 29, 1914, just four years after Kent Normal School was chartered and only one year after the first regular academic year began, the initial issue of the Normal High School News rolled off the press.

The age of "student media" had dawned. The News was a tame weekly with a subscription cost of 75 cents a year. It wasn't much to look at. Or read. Printed on inexpensive paper on a second-hand press purchased for $554, the 6 X 9-inch four-pager was written and produced by 14-year-old ninth graders at the training school operated by the college.

The paper didn't last very long. Enrollment at Kent Normal in 1914 was listed at only 537, but even that figure is suspect. And of those 537 students, few subscribed to The News, making it difficult to make ends meet. That, along with the pubescent news judgment of its teenage editors, evidently was enough to do in the paper only a year after its inception.

Nature abhors a vacuum, however, and The News quickly was replaced. On November 4, 1915, The Kentonian was spanked into life. It also was a weekly and cost 75 cents a year. Published by students at the college, not the training school, The Kentonian was a faithful, if uninspired, recorder of the day's doings of Kent students, staff and faculty. Students who wrote and edited The Kentonian

had no formal instruction in journalism, at least not at Kent Normal. But, they did have enthusiastic faculty advisers. Nina J. Williams, who taught English in the training school, and Dr. John Brookie Faught, who taught mathematics in the training school (and who bought the used press for $554), served as "literary" and business advisers, respectively.

Content of The Kentonian was nothing exceptional: some news about speeches and dramatic or musical productions, some campus chatter, a little poetry, and a strong streak of college boosterism.

Solving financial issues

By 1917, that paper, too, was feeling an economic pinch. Editor Henry J. Robison noted in his last editorial of the school year on June 13 that the paper "has not been all the staff would wish for it to be, but it has been as good as we could make it with the money and brains at our disposal. Next year, when every student will be a subscriber to the paper, the financial problem will be solved, and we predict that a better paper will be the result."

Part of the "financial problem" alluded to was an injury self inflicted. The Kentonian bragged that it accepted no advertising in order to open up its columns for "student activity and literary work." Absent income from advertising, however, The Kentonian had little chance for long-term survival. Nevertheless, it boasted in the college's 1917 year-book that it was "filled with reading matter well adapted to this particular student body and its needs." No doubt an oblique reference to the adolescent news philosophy of its predecessor, The News.

The Kentonian, college booster that it was, enjoyed the support of Kent's first president, John McGilvrey. The June 13 editorial mentioning that each student would be a "subscriber" to the paper the next year, was a reference to a new McGilvrey policy that initiated a student fee of $1 per quarter, part of which went to support the paper. Thus, The Kentonian survived. At least for one more year.

The Kentonian fails

Shortly after students returned to school in the fall of 1918, a devastating flu hit the campus, closing the school and The Kentonian. Kent Normal tried twice to reopen, but the virulent flu persisted. The campus eventually survived the malady. The Kentonian tried. It reappeared briefly in 1920 but on an irregular basis.

And, when it was published it sometimes was as a weekly, sometimes as a quarterly. Often it had a literary, rather than a journalistic, orientation. At times, it served as an official publication of the college. By 1930, The Kentonian was gone.

When it had appeared, though drab in appearance and plodding in writing style, it provided an interesting view into life at Kent Normal (soon to be Kent State Normal) in its infancy.

To wit: A new institution with an enrollment at least 80% female, the school still fielded a football team in the early 1920s. It was not successful. It did not win. Most games it did not score. Hence, the euphoria produced by the Kent team's first crossing-of-the-goal-line--albeit in a 7-6 loss to West Liberty State--was sincere and passionate.

Ki-Likity What??

The November 1923 Kentonian reported that a jubilant student body created a new school cheer in honor of its charges' gridiron prowess. It went as follows:

Ki-yi, Ki-yi, Ki-likity bim,
Come out of the woods, and sandpaper your chin!
We're wild and we're woolly, with teeth like a saw;
Kent State College--Rah! Rah! Rah!

The newspaper/literary review was not the only publication for students. In the spring of 1914, at the end of the first full academic year for Kent Normal School, the first yearbook was published. It was called the Chestnut Burr, named for the burrs from the chestnut trees that abounded on campus. (All the trees later died from the blight.) It was produced by the Walden Dramatic Club, a group of women students who lived in Lowry Hall, the first dormitory on campus.

Bill Maple, first full time faculty member in Journalism.

The women residents were enraptured with the works of transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau and liked to call their dorm Walden Hall because of their enthusiasm for the author of "Walden Pond." The Walden Dramatic Club also put together the 1915 Chestnut Burr. Nina Williams, literary adviser to The Kentonian, also served as adviser to the Chestnut Burr. The Kentonian had enjoyed

administrative support, if not largess, under President McGilvrey. It was unfortunate for that publication, therefore, that McGilvrey was removed from office in January 1926 on bogus charges trumped up by political foes.

Kent State was placed under the operation of the Ohio Board of Education and an acting president, T. Howard Winters. The move provoked palpable anger among the student body. Says KSU historian, Phillip R. Shriver, "A tense atmosphere gripped the campus. McGilvrey's popularity and the role of the state department of education in bringing about his dismissal had combined to create an explosive restlessness among the students."

One manifestation of that restlessness was the sudden appearance of a new student publication, The Searchlight.

The Searchlight beams

First issued on February 25, 1926, only weeks after McGilvrey's removal, The Searchlight was unauthorized and served as an outlet for the anti-state government feel-ings simmering among students. The underground paper's first issue blared across four columns: "SEARCHLIGHT BEAMS ON KENT STATE!" Unlike the school-supported Kentonian, The Searchlight meant to survive on its own, independent of the university, and it asked readers to pay a nickel a copy.

Editor, Walter A. Jantz, and Associate Editor, Margaret (Peg) Hayes, proclaimed that students had not been kept informed of what was happening on campus and needed a greater voice in the operation of the college.

They also wanted a change in the dress code for college assemblies, a change in the way tickets for graduation were distributed and less state interference in university governance. For the next five months, The Searchlight carried not only the routine editorial grist--club news, entertainment, and meetings--but also tart columns and edi-torials on administration policies.

Too much criticism

When the college administration declared that the grading system was too lax and that standards should be tightened, The Searchlight staff lampooned the proposal. It trumpeted that "most of the professors are not in sympathy with this system at all. Practically all students are against it."

On May 22, 1926, The Searchlight claimed that Jantz and Hayes had been mysteriously questioned by "state officials" about its remarks, but it promised to continue "fearless debate on all topics."

In the July 15 issue of The Searchlight, editors told the college administration and state officials to stop tinkering with the college and its internal policies. Two more of those "state officials" from Columbus motored to Kent and quizzed Jantz and Hayes behind closed doors for two hours.

On July 22, The Searchlight proclaimed that rumors it would be "suppressed" were not true, and its editors declared that it would continue as long as it was needed.

College administrators took the paper at its word and determined The Searchlight no longer was needed. It was abolished, and Jantz was suspended from school for insubordination. Curiously, his associate editor, Margaret Hayes, remained both unrepentant and in school.

Kent Stater, vox populi?

On Thursday, July 29--the day The Searchlight normally would have appeared--the campus greeted a new arrival, the weekly Kent Stater, labeled "the official organ of the school."

This is the 1927 staff of the Kent Stater. (Chestnut Burr photos)

Its first editors: Margaret (Peg) Hayes (nee Searchlight) and Marion Wolcott. Its goal: to print "clean and accurate news free from scandal and sensation." Gone was the voice of discontent and challenge. In was the voice of compromise and civility. On that date in 1926, the Kent Stater was born.

Me thinks they doth protest....

Student protests were not over, however. Nor was the Kent Stater the last publication to appear in the Twenties.

Shortly after the state board of education had appointed an acting president for the college, the university Board of Trustees met and selected a permanent replacement for McGilvrey, David Allen Anderson.

Quickly dissatisfied with Anderson's heavy-handedness in striking down faculty opposition to him and his policies, Kent students again rebelled. Some of them threatened a student strike, anticipating the activism of the 1960s.

And, in 1927, a few of them produced a second underground paper, this one called the Red Flame. In its first issue, the Red Flame's editors denounced Anderson's tactics and satirized his policies. Anderson struck back, expelling the editors of the Red Flame, thus, achieving his goal of chilling student enthusiasm for continued protest.

The dismissed editors of the Red Flame were Russell J. Woolman and the indomitable Margaret (Peg) Hayes, formerly of the outspoken Searchlight and the administration- backed Kent Stater. Anderson was removed as president shortly thereafter and replaced in 1928 by James Ozro Engleman.

The start of the Kent journalism program

Why, exactly, a formal journalism program was introduced into the Kent curriculum in 1927 is not recorded anywhere.

There is no evidence of students petitioning the faculty for a journalism class, as they would do for a radio class in a few years. There is no indication that faculty were especially interested in developing a journalism program.

However, when one considers the Kent State administrative and journalistic environments of the mid 1920s, some answers may be advanced, particularly if one equates this period with the 1960s and some of the underground newspapers on college campuses then.

Let's say that in the early 1920s, you were a Kent administrator--an administrator chafing from the barbs of "untrained" (and unrestrained) student journalists. Consider the grief The Searchlight visited on Acting President T. Howard Williams in 1926 and the darts aimed at new President David Allen Anderson by the Red Flame in 1927.

Consider the petulance and disrespect demonstrated by both publications toward you and other authority figures. Editors had been dismissed. The university administration had had to launch the "official" Kent Stater.

Perhaps, administrators concluded that, if there were going to be student publications on campus, the students who put them out and those who wanted to be journalists would be properly trained; they would be taught responsibility.

So, it really would not be surprising to see administrators scrambling in the summer of 1927 to find someone to teach those "proper" journalistic techniques and to give the Kent Stater appropriate advising.

The first full time journalism professor

And, that seems to be what happened. In August 1927 -- very late to be hiring a full time faculty member -- Kent State trustees approved the hiring of William Latta Mapel on a one-year contract (at $2,750) to teach journalism and modern drama in the English Department, to advise the Kent Stater, and to handle college publicity and publications. Kent State had found its "professional" teacher and adviser, and the academic roots of print journalism at Kent had been planted.

For decades, journalism literature, documents and reports at Kent State have indicated that the first journalism courses

Al Hill, wunkerkind

at Kent State were taught in 1928 in the English Department by professor Alfred Hill. The problem with that interpretation, however, is that there was no "Alfred Hill" on the faculty at the time. Not full-time, not part-time. Not in English, not in any academic unit. However, there was someone named "Al Hill" very close by. He was the

wunderkind editor of the Kent Stater for almost three consecutive years, from June 1927 until April 1930. It was this "Mr. Hill" who, indeed, did teach journalism courses at Kent State, but not until 1928-1929 and not until after Mapel left.

However, the first journalism courses at Kent State actually were taught a year earlier by 25-year-old Bill Mapel.

Mapel appears to have been a good choice by the Kent State administration in almost every respect. He had a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri (which operated the first school of journalism in the U.S. in 1908); he'd worked for small newspapers in Missouri for five years; he'd been a correspondent for the Kansas City Star; and he'd been director of information at Northwest Missouri State Teachers College just prior to coming to Kent.

The only negative thing about Mapel was that he gathered no moss. He hadn't stayed at any job longer than a year or two, and he wasn't about to break that string at Kent State. No more than seven or eight months after he had signed a 12-month contract with Kent State, Mapel tendered his resignation, effective at the end of spring quarter. He was headed for warmer weather in Lexington, Va. at Washington and Lee University as head of the journalism department. His career at Kent ended at the conclusion of spring quarter 1928.

Meet 'Professor' Alfred Hill

In his classes, Mapel had had a bright young student named Al Hill, who seemingly had a bent for the classroom. When Mapel arrived on campus, Hill already had been editor of the Kent Stater for two months. He also had worked for a time as a reporter and announcer for radio station WLS, Chicago, before coming to Kent.

When Mapel abruptly resigned, there was no one to teach the journalism classes that had been scheduled for the summer of 1928. Stepping into the breach was Al Hill. Not only did he handle the courses that summer, but he also began shaping a new journalism curriculum for Kent State.

By the fall of 1928, the new curriculum, very professional and very much built around the Kent Stater, was in place. During the 1928-1929 academic year, Hill taught Elementary Journalism, Advanced Journalism, and Staff Organization and Editing. Each class was two hours of credit, and a total of 10 students were enrolled.

A modern news curriculum

By the next academic year, Hill had created a modular journalism curriculum built around work on the Kent Stater, and focusing on such topics as editing, headline writing and page layout; reporting; newspaper illustration; journalism history; and high school journalism and publicity. The foundation of the modern news curriculum was in place.

Hill didn't teach those seven courses in the 1929-1930 academic year, however. Taking over Hill's curriculum was a newly hired, bright young English M.A. with a strong interest in journalism, Eric T. Griebling.

Enrollment in the journalism courses that year crept up to 16 students. In the summer of 1930, Hill was scheduled to assist Griebling in journalism classes, but by April 1930 Hill had resigned as Stater editor and by May he had graduated with a degree in agricultural education.

Griebling, who also taught advanced composition, drama and literature, was involved with journalism classes for only a year, but he maintained his ties with the students and his interest in the program for the next 30 years.

In 1934, he was an honorary member of the student journalism honorary, Chi Pi. In the 1940s and 1950s, he was a perennial member of the Publications Policy Committee. He remained with Kent State's English Department for more some 39 years, until his death in 1968.

Part F: Chi Pi, journalism honorary

To complete the "professional" training journalism students were receiving in the classroom, someone--most likely Mapel--came up with the idea of starting an honor fraternity for journalism students. In the fall of 1927, Chi Pi was

These are some of the first members of Chi Pi, including Buryl Engleman (far left) and Eric Griebling (far right).

founded. Modeled loosely after Sigma Delta Chi (founded in 1909 and now the Society of Professional Journalists), Chi Pi was the first subject-matter honorary established at Kent State.

Open to men and women, members had to have completed the sophomore year, and they had to have been active on either the Stater or the Chestnut Burr. Twenty-five years later, Chi Pi would become the Kent State chapter of Sigma Delta Chi.

Coda

By the end of the 1920s, the college had two thriving publications--the Kent Stater and the Chestnut Burr; one ailing journal--the Kentonian; and a new journalism honor fraternity for students.

Student publications had become more "responsible." Journalism education had gained a foothold in the academy, albeit in the English Department.

A great deal of growth had taken place, and promise seemed apparent. Yet, probably no one could have foreseen the dramatic changes just ahead. In print and in broadcast.

Read about the 1930s

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