A. Ray Olpin and the Postwar Emergency at the University of Utah BY ELINORE H . PARTRIDGE
University of Utah, ca. 1930, with Fort Douglas in the USHS collections.
background.
V / U T A HOLE IN T H E F E N C E AND LET T H E BOYS T H R O U G H 1 . "
The
fence of rather flimsy barbed wire separated the University of Utah from Fort Douglas. The suggestion to breach it came from Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, chief of staff of the U.S. Army, who had been listening on that February 18, 1946, to the new president of the university, A. Ray Olpin, describe a common dilemma on the nation's campuses: "We have students coming out of our ears." The G.I.'s returning from World War II were looking for an education and a place where they and, in Dr. Partridge is writing a book on the Olpin years commissioned by the Bicentennial Committee on Publications at the University of Utah.
