Dr. Edward McDaniel Collins Jr. President, 1970-1978
tough economic times during the (Jimmy) Carter administration. I had to scramble around and find a way to fund pay raises for the faculty and the administration. We did come up with a pay raise one particular year. The only way I did it was to convince the students that an increase in their tuition would go towards a raise for the by: jesse yancy, freelance writer faculty.” r. Edward M. Collins was inaugurated as Millsaps Through the efforts of the trustees, the Millsaps Development College’s eighth president on April 3, 1971. Corp. was established in 1970 to develop a tract of approximately Mississippi Lt. Gov. Charles Sullivan, Jackson 40 acres of land on the north end of the campus. The Texaco Corp. Mayor Russell C. Davis, and some 22 other college and United Inns of America agreed to lease Millsaps property and presidents attended the ceremony. construct, respectively, a service station, which is now Medical In the early 1970s, chiefly as a result of fairly static enrollment Center Texaco, and a Holiday Inn Motor Hotel, which is now Cabot and rapidly increasing operations costs, the College began to face Lodge Millsaps. annual operating deficits. Collins, who lives on the Mississippi Gulf Collins was the second alumnus to become president of the Coast in Gautier, remembers that his most significant challenge was College. He graduated from Millsaps in 1952 with a bachelor's in the economic climate of the 1970s. “We went through some really political science after three years of study. He earned his bachelor's in theology from Emory. He earned a master’s degree from the University of Iowa and a doctorate in communications from Ohio University. He is an ordained Methodist minister. During the Collins administration, historic Founders Hall, built in 1885, was demolished. First used as a dormitory, it was the home of the Millsaps Preparatory School until 1922. Before its demolition in 1973, it housed offices and classrooms. Dr. T.W. Lewis, B.A. 1953, emeritus professor of religious studies, recalls • Second alumnus to become president of the College that the Heritage Program and classical studies were • Scored the winning touchdown in a game against Mississippi advanced under Collins’ College when he was an undergraduate at Millsaps leadership. “ S o m e t i m e a ro u n d • Led the College during a difficult economic climate 1970-71, there were retirements in the areas of classical studies, and the board of trustees felt that this was a good opportunity to save some money by not filling the vacancies and removing the classical studies programs from the curriculum,” Lewis said. “A team from the American Philological Association visited the college in 1973, met with Dr. Collins, and after that meeting, he asked a faculty committee to find a foundation that would
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Dr. Edward McDaniel Collins Jr.
1971 Joanne Edgar, B.A. 1965, cofounds Ms. magazine. 1967 Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara gives convocation speech.
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