college, as well as a dossier of personal and financial information on individual faculty members. Stone’s findings, combined with treasurer John Tiedtke’s equally gloomy projections, gave Wagner all the data he needed to present the trustees with a comprehensive cost-reduction plan. At the trustees’ meeting on Tuesday, February 27, 1951, Wagner found himself in the familiar role of super-salesman. He delivered, as usual, a virtuoso performance, employing a slide show with graphics and spontaneously writing figures on large sheets of newsprint — then ripping and casting the paper aside as he spoke. Wagner steamrolled the trustees with his apparent grasp of the challenges at hand. Not in war nor peace nor depression had the college ever faced such a crisis, Wagner insisted. As in the business world, he said, the college must make decisions in a “tough-minded way.” Businessmen, he noted, lived not in a “romantic” but a “realistic” world — and a college “is, in effect, a business.” Wagner reported that all colleges, including Rollins, expected a 30 percent drop in enrollment. Therefore, he was planning for only 449 students in the coming year — a decline of 29 percent. Since the operating budget would depend entirely upon income from student fees, he said, and since income from those fees could drop by as much as $150,000, then cuts at least equal to that amount would have to be made. Tiedtke had already done all the paring back he could, Wagner added. The only area left untouched, he continued, was the educational program budget, which would need to be reduced by $87,000. In more relatable terms, that meant between 15 and 20 faculty members would have to go. The trustees seemed stunned by Wagner’s rapid-fire, fact-filled performance. His arguments sounded logical, but it was difficult — perhaps impossible — to absorb all of the figures and statistics in one sitting. Wagner had chosen not to distribute a printed report for later, more careful perusal. Nor had he offered any alternatives. He had considered other plans, he explained, and except for the one he presented, had found all of them wanting. Tiedtke confirmed that a serious financial problem was looming. But, while not directly contradicting the president, he reminded the trustees of the college’s mission: “We have a Cadillac assembly line, and we cannot turn out Cadillacs without fenders or radiators or wheels; nor can we turn out Fords, for we are not built that way.” Worried that the college could destroy its reputation over the long term, Tiedtke asked the trustees to consider all the ramifications of draconian cuts: “I look at this very much like a cancer. To save your life you may have to amputate your hand, but it’s a serious matter to amputate your hand.” Stone then reported that many faculty members
were moonlighting simply to make ends meet. Because Wagner had argued that his plan would allow the college to raise salaries for remaining faculty members, this knowledge seemed to make dismissals somewhat more palatable. At least some people — those still employed — might be better off, and the college would be spared ruin. Consequently, the trustees voted unanimously in favor of Wagner’s plan, and prepared an ominous public statement instructing the president to reduce the faculty, exempting some part-timers as well as those who taught courses deemed necessary. Having dispensed with the matter of budget and faculty cuts, members of the executive committee, who had known of Wagner’s proposals in advance and unanimously supported them, moved abruptly to solidify the president’s position ahead of a predictable backlash.
absence, according to the analysis. Stone also provided Wagner with an overview of departmental conditions, pointing out areas in which dismissals would most harm the college academically. Believing that he had completed his due diligence, Wagner began compiling a list of faculty members to be released at the end of the academic year. In the midst of this process, he appeared before a regularly scheduled faculty meeting on Monday, March 5. In an abbreviated repetition of his whirlwind trustee presentation, Wagner outlined his retrenchment policies, presenting what he called the trustees’ “mathematical formula” for determining faculty dismissals. These objective criteria, he explained, were designed to obviate the need to make judgments on a personal basis.
At the trustees’ meeting on Tuesday, February 27, 1951, Wagner found himself in the familiar role of super-salesman. He delivered, as usual, a virtuoso performance, employing a slide show with graphics and spontaneously writing figures on large sheets of newsprint — then ripping and casting the paper aside as he spoke.
They voted Wagner a $2,000 raise beginning in March 1951, and promised him an additional $500 annual increase until his salary reached $15,000. Additionally, they adopted a resolution praising his good work and lauding his “constructive plans for the future of the institution.” The following day, the executive committee tried to further insulate Wagner by offering a 10-year contract — later reduced to five years, after some trustees objected — and adopting an amendment to the bylaws stating that the president “shall have the sole power to hire and discharge employees and to fix administrative and educational policies of the college subject to the veto of the board of trustees.” Many trustees left the meeting with an uneasy feeling about the propriety — perhaps even the ethics — of raising a president’s salary and handing him a five-year contract while simultaneously voting to deprive numerous faculty members of their sole means of support. But no one voted against the motions to do so. Some few salved their consciences by recording their abstentions.
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BLACK THURSDAY
Wagner now began to study Stone’s report on the personal financial situations of faculty members. Conveniently, between 15 and 20 were financially secure or able to survive a year’s leave of
Then he added this chilling warning: There would be “no appeal and no discussion” following dismissal announcements. Faculty members understood the college’s desperate financial situation. But how could they respond to Wagner’s proposed solution when they had seen nothing on paper, nothing concrete to ponder and nothing to analyze? Although Wagner had permitted no questions, many lingered. Who developed the “mathematical formula?” What did the criteria for dismissal mean? Who, in fact, could even remember those criteria? Wagner had promised to issue letters of dismissal immediately. In the interim, faculty members anxiously hovered around their mailboxes, expecting the worst. As Royal France, a professor of economics, later expressed it: “For two breathless days the axe hung suspended over faculty heads, no one knowing who was to be decapitated, and soon anger rose alongside fear.” The axe fell on Thursday, March 8, and the thudding of heads falling reverberated throughout the community. Initially, the numbers alone were startling. The dismissals totaled 19 fulltimers and four part-timers — one-third of the entire faculty. Then, as the names became known, the shock turned to anger. Thirteen of those dismissed had earned tenure, and most had served the college for 15 to 20 years. Among them were some of the S PRING 2 0 1 7 | W INT ER PARK MAGAZ IN E
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