At Ohio University, in the relaxed southern Ohio town of Athens (pop. 9,000), the current saying is: "A Yaleman founded the school, but a Harvardman put it on its feet." The Yaleman was Manasseh Cutler, who helped start the university in 1804 as the nation's first land-grant college. The Harvardman: 54-year-old John Calhoun Baker, Ohio's president since 1945.
When John Baker arrived at Ohio's Hocking Valley campus five years ago, he found the old college in shabby shape. While Ohio State at Columbus was booming along with 7,500 students, Ohio University's enrollment had dwindled to a mere 1,395. It was stumbling along on a $1,450,000 budget—far below what it needed. The roof of historic old Cutler Hall leaked, and the building had been condemned. Other buildings needed cleaning, painting, and repairing. Patches of bare ground showed through the campus turf like moth holes in a bearskin rug. Not surprisingly, faculty and student morale was in the dumps.
Open to Everyone. Sandy-haired John Baker, who had been associate dean of Harvard University, was no man to sit and fret about adversity. He seemed to be everywhere at once. At 8:30 each morning, the daily parade of visitors found him in his office ready to see one & all ("You can't administer in a vacuum," says he. "My door is open to everyone"). Later, he would be striding about the campus, inspecting and making plans, tossing out a cheerful "Howdy" to whomever he met. Late at night, while the fire crackled in his study, he went on with his work long after most campus lights were out.
As the months passed, the university began to buzz. Baker persuaded the legislature to give him enough money to double his plant. He built two spanking new dormitories, new chemistry and engineering buildings, an indoor swimming pool, a health center, an astronomy laboratory—seven new buildings in all. He spent nearly $1,000,000 streamlining the older buildings from top to bottom, planting clumps of shrubbery, restoring turf to the lawns. Partly because of the G.I. bill, but perhaps as much because of John Baker, university enrollments more than tripled.
Open for the Best. President Baker's streamlining did not stop there. To perk up his faculty, he sent some of his professors off for a year of extra study at Harvard. ("What's he trying to do," some Ohioans wondered, "make this a Harvard on the Hocking?") He hired others from such universities as Columbia and Chicago. He searched like a talent scout for the best men he could find to fill the vacancies in the colleges of fine arts, applied science, education and commerce. He left no doubt of his plans: "We are building a quality institution."