Historians gain insight into the character and psyche of a people by studying how they confront crisis; how, when faced with personal trauma and threats to culture and country, they react to the adversity.

In the four years that followed the declarations of war on Japan and Germany, the country answered gallantly. Each city, county, hamlet responded as best it could. Even the so-called ivory-tower citadels of the academy responded, including Kent State.

From 1941 through 1945, more than 5,000 Kent students, faculty, staff and alumni saw activity in all branches of the service. Enrollment figures tell a startling story.

In the fall of 1941, almost 2,300 students were enrolled at Kent. By the fall of 1943, enrollment had plummeted to less than 800; by the start of the next term, 696 students registered for classes, only about 15% of them men.

The number of full time faculty fell from 131 in September 1941 to 92 two years later. Twenty nine joined the military and 10 others went into government or private industry in projects related to the war.

Taylor enters the Army

One of those faculty members was Taylor. In June 1942, he was granted a leave of absence to go into the military. He spent the next year "awaiting a commission," as he put it. During that time, he handled the internal public relations of the Sperry Gyroscope Co. in Brooklyn, N.Y. Shortly thereafter, at the age of 40, he entered the Army and served three years, primarily in the South Pacific.

His service with the 14th Anti-Aircraft Command earned him a Bronze Star, campaign and unit citations. Part of his time also was spent as an information officer on MacArthur's staff in the Philippines. He advanced to the rank of lieutenant colonel. While overseas, he also wrote a book on gardening for bored GIs and produced a language guide for Tagalog, a dialect in the Philippines. Taylor returned to the Kent State faculty at the start of the spring quarter in 1946.

resilient Radio Speaking class in the School of Speech was suffering through lower enrollments.

Similar problems also brought major changes to student organizations and student media. In Kent Hall, the Radio Workshop struggled to continue. In 1942, Kent State began to train radio technicians to aid in national defense. The same year, the Workshop broadcast a number of war sketches and helped sell war bonds.

Women become radio announcers

During 1942, for the first time, women students were used as announcers. In the 1943-1944 school year, the Radio Workshop was suspended. Faced with no commercial air time, students in the Workshop carried on with practice broadcasting. The 1944 Burr noted that Virginia Good worked as KSRW head, producer, chief engineer and instructor. Air crewmen, who were being boarded and trained at Kent State, made records for the folks back home in Workshop facilities.

Over in Merrill Hall, the Kent Stater, which only recently had gone daily, was cut to two days a week. There were few male staffers.

Fran Murphey, writing about the period, recalled: "Since the war was on and a lot of men went into the service, I became Stater editor when I was a junior." She also had declared in the November 1976 issue of Jargon, "I had a staff of the halt, lame and blind, and still got along."

Adelaide Snyder, Stater editor

The next year, Adelaide Snyder and Ruth Recht were Stater editors; Ruth Smith was business manager. Noted the 1944 Chestnut Burr, "Cut to two editions a week, they did put out a fine paper. Snyder's editorials were some of the finest ever written for the Stater." At the Chestnut Burr, Jane McDowell headed the staff in 1944. The Duchess was suspended. Both remaining publications had difficulty obtaining necessary materi-als. Lenny Shafitz, editor of the 1942 Burr, wrote about the problem: "Our nation at war touches the Burr as well -- a yearbook is a

reflector of university life. Practically, the tools of our work--printing, engraving and covers, became, by necessity, scarce, and the final work is a bit less than originally planned. But we would rather have it so."

The impact of the war on women student journalists was immediate and apparent. In the front of the classrooms, there were similar changes.

Opal (Wigner) Boffo (above) taught radio courses during the war, while Bee Offineer, a Beacon Journal reporter, taught newswriting.

In 1944, the journalism and radio programs hired their first female instructors. Beatrice (Bee) Offineer, radio editor of the Akron Beacon Journal, was hired to teach writing part time in the School of Journalism. The women of Lambda Phi inducted her into the organization as an honorary member in 1945 and honored her at their annual reception in 1946.

John Mine, seated second from left, visits Kent, on military leave.

In the Division of Radio, Opal (Wigner) Boffo, a 1942 graduate of Kent and a former member of the Radio Workshop, was hired by E. Turner Stump to direct the Workshop and to teach the Radio Speaking class. Well known for her work in theater as an undergraduate, Boffo had worked for an Akron radio station for a short time after graduation. It was Boffo who restarted live Workshop broadcasts in December 1945.

In her two-year tenure as a Radio-Speech instructor, she also developed a number of new ideas for KSRW. Boffo was not around to see those plans implemented, however. Her appointment was temporary, lasting two years.

During the war, the once bustling campus was eerily quiet. Fraternities and sororities, once the hub of Kent social life, closed their houses. Athletics were abandoned. It was a time of ration books, war bond drives, long-distance romances, and soldiers returning to campus on furloughs or as veterans.

Lambda Phi becomes 'a connecting link'

Lambda Phi, the women's journalism honorary, continued on, although its mission was altered. In the spring of 1944, the pledge used for initiation ceremonies was changed: "...Lambda Phi has been forced to revise many of its activities since the wartime change in the School of Journalism. Our task is even greater now, in some ways, than before the war began. We must continue to be a connecting link to the men and women who have left Kent State University after working or studying here in our journalism field...."

John Mine (class of 1942) was one of those GIs who stopped by Kent on a furlough and was treated to coffee, chow and the latest "gossip" by Lammy Pies.

Mine had been editor of the Kent Stater in December 1941 and usually is given credit for starting the "beat" system on the Stater.

He says his "proudest day" as editor came in putting out an "extra" the day after Pearl Harbor. "We pegged our extra on FDR's declaration of war speech," Mine recalled. "We wrote the speech story and stories about the attack from radio broadcasts. We all pitched in and delivered the extra to campus." The December 16, 1941 Jargon boasted "Within 28 minutes after Congress had adopted the resolution placing the United States in a state of war with Japan, the Kent Stater's 'extra' edition was distributed to University students."

Censorship in Kent?

The war affected Kent journalists in other ways as well. Luella (Heupel) Cordier called reporting during wartime "interesting." Said Cordier: "One of my features about a local man fighting in North Africa had to be censored by the U.S. government. And when I started to use my Speed Graphic to take a picture of departing servicemen at the Kent train station, an army officer stopped me, citing aid to the enemy."

The story of life at Kent State during the war could never be complete without taking notice of the role of the school's alumni publication, Jargon. If the Lammy Pies thought they had to be a "connecting link" between students at Kent State and those scattered around the world in the military or war-related activities, Jargon was the glue that held together the Body Journalism.

The newsletter for alums, students and friends of the School of Journalism was born in 1939. Credit for the "seminal brainstorm"--as Murphey called it--goes to 1942 graduate, Augie Quattrochi. He sold Taylor on the idea and from 1939 to the present--in many shapes, sizes and forms--Jargon has continued to complete the mission envisioned by Quattrochi: to serve as the major link for alumni of the School of Journalism (and now the School of Journalism and Mass Communication).

Jargon with caricatures of Quattrochi and Murphey

The first copies of Jargon, as Murphey declared, "ambled off the mimeograph machine with the blazing sketched headline, JOURNALISTS PREPARE TO GREET PARENTS, introducing a single-sheet long version of the house organ." It wasn't long, though, until the Jargon assumed its best-known size and configuration: shirt pocket size (3 inches wide by 5 1/4 inches deep), small type and line art, and packed with information. Quattrochi served as editor for the first two years.

Jargon has lasting legacy

The role Jargon played during the war can never be overstated. Watched over by Murphey for most of the war years, Jargon reached Kent journalism students in, literally, every corner of the world with news of the faculty, program, alums, students serving in the military and activities of student media and student groups.

Quattrochi played many significant roles in the history of the School of Journalism over the years. One of those that he--and Taylor--remembered best, though, happened during the war. Quattrochi had finished his degree coursework in January of 1942 and had entered the Army. Granted leave, he returned to Kent to receive his degree in June. He was the only graduate not in the traditional cap and gown. Instead, he wore his Army uniform, and President Leebrick singled him out as a "fitting representative" of Kent State during the war.

Unfortunately, there were other Kent State representatives: 113 students and alumni died during World War II.

The post-war years held much promise for the journalism and broadcast programs. Read more

Previous Chapter

Return to JMC Home Page