The contentiousness of the Sixties lapped into the next decade.

Flashpoint issues such as Southeast Asia, civil rights, abortion, women's and student's rights, the environment--all framed the battles in the country, as well as at Kent State. Positions were sharply, if illogically, drawn on many issues. There was little, if any, middle ground expressed, or allowed. The more inflexible individuals and groups became, the more the country steamrolled toward some national calamity.

We just didn't know that one of those calamities would happen in our backyard.

There was a bad broth brewing: the student activism gaining strength on American campuses in the late Sixties, an outdated foreign policy, intractable political, military and social leaders, campus agitation by non-students, an overly ambitious state governor--all combined to make conditions ripe for confrontation and tragedy. Kent State got both in 1970 and the building named after Bill Taylor ironically served as the backdrop for some of the events and almost all of the television coverage.

'We desperately need calming influences...'

The story of May 4, 1970 has been told and retold, altered to the particular political persuasion of the speaker or author. The story won't be recounted here. The killing and wounding at Kent cost lives, reputations, spirit and status.

The event had broad effects, not only on individuals, but on such disparate institutions as the U.S. presidency and Kent State University. Enrollment fell, not to begin to recover until 1973 and 1974 when Journalism and Broadcasting enrollment not only recovered, but skyrocketed. The perceived image of Kent as a hotbed of hippie hedonism and liberalism spread across the country.

WKSU staffers in 1970 Chestnut Burr photo

Ironically, a book, later turned into a movie, on journalism's role in exposing the political corruptness of Nixon and his administration, led to an influx of students into schools of journalism. Students came with a renewed sense of altruism, a desire to save country, to make a positive difference--the same driving forces that had committed young people to the Kennedy campaign a decade earlier. They brought staggering numbers of students to journalism departments, including Kent.

No room in the inn

Negative publicity from the killings at Kent combined with a flagging economy, tight budgets and less state financial support to drop overall enrollment at the university. In 1970, Kent had more than 21,000 students on the main campus. Ten years later, it had 18,000.

While most of the university struggled to get students, the Journalism and Telecommunications programs struggled to find room for all those who wanted in. Until a severe budget crunch really hit all departments hard in 1978, the two programs were enjoying unprecedented enrollments.

In 1970, the School of Journalism had a total class enrollment of about 500 students; three years later, there were 800. By 1973-74, Journalism had more than 800 majors, making it the tenth largest program in the country. In 1974-75, it was the seventh largest with 966 students, and in 1975-76, it peaked at more than 1,000 majors. The graduate program, which had been started in 1968 with a relative handful of students, had 76 students enrolled in 1974; a year later, enrollment approached 90.

The story was the same in the Telecommunications program. Walt Clarke and John Weiser were confronted with far more students than their facilities could handle. Before the decade was over, the number of majors would top 500.

Journalism's Perry, trying to assess the national explosion in the number of students wanting to enter journalism, suggested to a Stater reporter that part of the "problem" was the Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein book (and later movie), All the President's Men. Suddenly, newspapers everywhere were investigating anything not tied down, and many students wanted to become investigative reporters, he declared. And, in fact, the School did initiate a popular course in Investigative Reporting.

Faculty closets/offices

Facing the flood of bodies, both Journalism and Telecommunications had to find new faculty to teach the students and somewhere to put them.

Broadcast facilities in the Music and Speech Center were spacious and modern when the building opened in 1960. There was lots of elbow room, and expansion for Broadcasting had been thought of--to the extent of, perhaps, 200 students. In the 1970s, there were two or three times that many trying to get into classes. Suddenly, classrooms weren't large enough; studios were too small and more were needed; editing labs were overburdened; and equipment was outdated.

The Journalism program had been thrilled only five years earlier to move into Taylor Hall. There was almost three and a half times as much square footage as in Merrill Hall. Much of that, however, was consumed by the photography programs. The building was planned to handle a good-sized program of 250-300 majors. Not 800 or 1,000.

The growth meant more faculty members, and new faculty members needed office space. Every cubby-hole that could hold desk and chair was converted to classroom or of-fice space.

Faculty. They came, and left, in droves. No fewer than 28 full-time faculty members (tenure and non-tenure track) were hired in the Seventies. Earl Clanton, the first full-time minority faculty member hired in either program, came aboard in 1970 and taught photography for two years. A number of the faculty members were on temporary appointments for a year or two, but attrition still took its toll. By 1980, only 10 of the 19 tenure-track faculty hired only a few years earlier remained on the staff. Telecom's Weiser said his division had "a revolving door of faculty; appointments made, last a year, then resign."

John Perry (no relation to Murv) joined the Telecommun-ications faculty in 1971 with one of his main responsibilities being to supervise the quickly maturing WKSU-FM. Within two years, the station had qualified for National Public Radio status, and Perry became full-time station manager, and a full-time professional staff took over operation of the station. Tom Olson was named head of Television Services (now Teleproductions) when Phil Macomber died unexpectedly in 1978.

Walt Clarke has enough

The Telecommunications program suffered another heavy loss during the 1970s, and at least some of the blame can be placed on the contentiousness growing in the country and at Kent.

Walt Clarke had come to Kent State in 1946, full of ideas and plans. In 1975, at the age of 65 and after 29 years of service to the university, Clarke retired. "The general mood at KSU had changed dramatically from what had prevailed earlier to a harsher, competitive, confrontational spirit," Clarke said. "The interests of students, particularly the undergraduates,

were giving way to faculty concerns and the administrative superstructure was being preserved at all costs."

Grievances, bureaucracy, legal threats. Clarke had had it. Teaching was no longer fun. "Although I knew I would miss my association with students, I just did not have the will to continue," he said.

Still, Clarke had reached, and probably surpassed, his goals by then. First, radio had been developed, and then television. The academic program was thriving; WKSU-AM was back on the air as a campus coverage station (it would become WKSR); the FM station had joined the NPR team and was winning awards; and the service unit to the uni-versity (Teleproductions) was growing rapidly. Clarke eventually moved to California for his retirement, always keeping in touch with friends and former students, until his death in 2003. Weiser, who was hired in 1949, took over as head of the division until he retired in 1982.

'A monumental loss...'

Bill Taylor was enjoying retirement. After leaving the university in 1967, he had more time to travel in Europe and to hunt for antiques and rare books. In December 1970, the governor of Ohio appointed Taylor to the Kent Board of Trustees to fill the unexpired term (1979) of Donald C. Rowley.

In October 1975, while attending the dedication of new buildings at the East Liverpool campus, Taylor fell and broke his ankle. That kept him from attending the annual Homecoming coffee hour and brunch for alumni. But, inveterate notewriter that he was, he penned short notes to many of them, promising to see them the following year.

It didn't happen. On November 3, Taylor became ill at his home in Hartville, and was taken to Aultman Hospital in nearby Canton. He died while undergoing surgery for a ruptured aorta. He was 72.

Bill Taylor gone. Walt Clarke retired. In one year, Kent State lost the founders of Kent JMC.

'A very touchy and uncomfortable situation...'

Murv Perry could be a veritable bulldog. When he believed freedom of the press was being attacked, when his personal or professional principles were being questioned, he could scrap as well as most. He'd been doing it since he came to Kent in 1963. The problem was, Kent State had more and bigger bulldogs.

Perry was removed as director of the School of Journalism in 1979 after a four-month, "administrative review" by F&PA Dean Harry Ausprich.

A number of people on and off campus thought Perry was removed because of palpable political in-fighting among the journalism faculty. Political schisms no doubt existed, as they do in most work environments, and the politicking in the School of Journalism had been going on for years, well before Perry came to Kent, and it continued after he left. Ralph Darrow, who had

Murv Perry, removed as director in 1979

joined the faculty in 1967, found the rift to be "a very touchy and uncomfortable situation." But, office politics didn't get Perry removed as director.

Then, and now, Perry believes he was fired for two reasons: refusal to "control" the Kent Stater and refusal to replace the paper's faculty adviser, Frank Ritzinger.

The Kent Stater, as well as the Beacon Journal, had been especially aggressive in the mid-70s practicing investigative journalism and pursuing a number of sensitive and controversial stories that the university administration viewed as unfavorable publicity.

Perry made the administrative review public in October 1978 at the annual Homecoming alumni lunch. That began nine months of intense academic brawling, as Perry and his supporters fought to maintain not only his job as director, but also his reputation and that of the School that he had helped fashion for the past 15 years. University administra-tors were determined to keep the battle "in house," and Perry was just as determined to take it to the media and the public. During and after the dispute, administrators declined to discuss it.

On January 29, 1979, Ausprich again convened the journalism faculty, this time to announce that he was recommending Perry not be reappointed director of the School.

By the end of the dispute, Perry realized what most neutral observers had known from the beginning: he couldn't win. You can raise a ruckus in the media, but the fuss will be just a transient ripple on the waters of academia. If, as Perry charged, the university administration wanted him gone, it took nine noisy and controversial months, but, in the end, he was gone.

In April 1979, Perry resigned, effective the end of the summer session, to become head of the growing department of journalism at East Tennessee State, Johnson City. Before his retirement in 1995, Perry helped the mass communication program grow to 350 majors and receive AEJMC accreditation.

One faculty member who was in close agreement with Perry was embattled Stater adviser Frank Ritzinger. Joining the faculty in 1971 after a career in newspapers and trade union public relations, Ritzinger was immensely popular with students. His grading standards were hard, but fair, and his approach to advising the Stater was professional, hard-ball and "hands-off."

Stater adviser removed

Ritzinger had come to Kent State without a master's degree, however, and the administration claimed his failure to obtain one was the reason his contract was not renewed at the end of the 1978-1979 academic year. Nine days after F&PA dean Ausprich recommended Perry be removed, he notified Ritzinger that he would not be granted tenure and would have to leave the faculty no later than the end of the next academic year. The timing probably looked worse than it was. It was largely coincidental for the most part. University guidelines dictated when tenure decisions had to be made and when faculty members had to be notified.

Ritzinger, like Perry, had charged that student government and the university administration wanted him to take a more active role as Stater adviser and prohibit stories averse to the university. Ritzinger's subsequent reappointment appeal also was turned down and he returned to the professional field. He died of a heart attack several years later.

A hard decade ended with the School and the University seeking a break, a withdrawal from years of tension and confrontation. The moderate Eighties were just around the corner. Read more

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