World War II and the Final Years of the Williamson County Science Building
World War II and the Final Years of the William County Science Building
By David Otterstetter
As fires across the Pacific burned the night of December 7th, 1941, the United States had been forced into the Second World War. As a newly active member of the war, the United States to shift its priorities and what it now determined as important. This shift and adaption was not just seen with the government or military but the entire country. Southwestern University was no different. Soon after the start of the war Southwestern became a wartime institution that not only helped with the war effort but turned into a microcosm of what happened to similar Liberal Arts institutions around the country and how their curriculum and focus shifted based on state goals and demands. One of these shifts was how these institutions viewed and prioritized science. Since World War I science and institutions became more intertwined with the State because with this new focus came financial resources that incentivized universities to prioritize science education.[1] The US government’s interest in science and its disciplines is reflected in the Southwestern University Williamson County Science Building both right before and during the Second World War. This shift can be seen from page 72 from A Presentation of the Facilities of Southwestern University Georgetown, Texas that is titled “Particular Fields in Which the University can Function Best in the War Emergency” that reinforces the focus that the university had going into the war and is shaped by events both prior to and during the American entrance into World War II.
The document is only a single page from a war report presented to the government of the United States. The university requested its consideration of specific war projects.[2] What this page demonstrates is the focus of the university as a war resource with a focus on science, technology, and mathematics for the training of American servicemen.[3] Before the start of the war the United States government took great interest in how the introduction of science education into higher education, primarily, although also in primary and secondary schools. The United States Office of Education supplied numerous materials to classrooms around the country that prepped the country for a possible war in Europe and the Pacific.[4] At the same time there were special government programs for civilians with military applications that started in the pre-war years.[5] One of these programs, the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP), was offered at Southwestern University. This program facilitated the construction of Georgetown Municipal Airport which was subsidized by the government program. The program would also have the classroom section of the taught by Dr. Burgin Dunn, a physics professor, in the Williamson County Science Building.[6] This shows the pre-war involvement of both the university and the science building that had a technological and science focus that was influenced and funded by the State.
It was clear that the United States government was prioritizing potential wartime skills related to science and technology before the war, but this would be significantly ramped up when the war started. With the onset of the war, new officer training programs were created to produce servicemen that were competent and capable of filling niche technical positions that were needed across all services. These programs took the form of college training like the Army Specialized Training Program and the Navy V-12 program.[7] Southwestern housed the Navy program beginning in the summer of 1943.[8] The V-12 program was vital to the continued longevity of the university because of a dramatic loss in students immediately after the start of the war. In the fall semester of 1941, the university had 1,947 students registered in the university and the following spring, it only had 406 total students, only 20% from the previous semester.[9] This loss of students was disastrous for the university, and it posed a financial loss for that academic year.[10] This was one of the major reasons for getting a V-12 unit stationed at the university. This approach was not unique to Southwestern, almost any university of the time with a significant drop in students took this approach.[11]
The V-12 unit came with government oversight. In this context, solvency meant losing some degree of autonomy.[12] Like other institutions across the country, Southwestern accelerated its curriculum by having classes the entire year, focusing on skill-based curricula, and a heavy focus on mathematics and science.[13] This focus built up former efforts to promote science education at the university. Before coming to Southwestern future President of Southwestern, J.N.R. Score, made specific demands before accepting the position. One of them was a complete overhaul of the Williamson County Science Building that would cost $200,000.[14]
This new focus on science would begin to permeate the university and other similar institutions. The presence of the Navy V-12 units were specifically chosen to be housed at nearly 100 smaller liberal arts campuses across the United States brought science education to a new level.[15] The programs focus on science, engineering, and mathematics is reflected in the mandated courses that were part of the program. The Navy developed a standard list of courses and their descriptions for all the institutions that participated in the program.[16] The program’s standard list of courses is a 44-page document that devotes more than 25 of its pages to science and science related coursework. This focus on science had a dramatic impact on the science building. The building was originally built decades before the war and had seen better days, evident by the major sum of money dedicated to its refurbishment under President Score. Even then the Navy required another $150,000 worth of repairs and restructuring of facilities before it would let the unit continue at the university.[17]
What all of this meant was that universities across the nation saw an increase in the number of students that were focused on science just like Southwestern. Many institutions across the nation provided their expertise to major efforts like the Manhattan Project but also provided valuable work on other projects like radar development.[18] This is due to the fact that the Navy wasn’t the only branch or part of the government that was conducting training programs in American universities. Similar to the Navy V-12 program the ASTP was designed to train potential Army officers who would fill technical positions throughout the Army and prep them for officer candidate school (OCS).[19] These programs that spanned hundreds of universities across the nation forced new curricula focus on the institutions that were present. When universities are beholden to government money for survival because of a lack of students this means that those universities are financially incentivized to cater to the wishes of the state. In this case a focus on science, technology, and mathematics that would shape post-secondary education across all the United States.
Southwestern wasn’t insulated from the events of the war and in fact required government assistance to survive. The new focus on science would shape the future of the William County Science Building after the war. Despite its admirable service in the war, it was demolished shortly after the conclusion of the war to make room for the new Fondren Science Hall that started construction in 1948 and was completed in 1954.[20] Regardless of that the science building represented a hub for the university during the war years and arguably saw its most active years during that time.
[1] Lightman, Bernard, ed. 2016. A Companion to the History of Science. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. Accessed May 4, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central.
[2] Southwestern University, A Presentation of the Facilities of Southwestern University Georgetown, Texas: Available for use by the Government of the United States in the War Emergency (Georgetown, Texas: Southwestern University, 1943), 1-78.
[3] Southwestern University, A Presentation of the Facilities of Southwestern University Georgetown, Texas, 72.
[4] Gerard Giordano, Wartime Schools: How World War II Changed American Education (New York: Peter Lang, 2004), 32.
[5] Giordano, Wartime Schools: How World War II Changed American Education 30-34.
[6] William B. Jones, To Survive and Excel: The Story of Southwestern University 1840-2000 (Georgetown, Texas: Southwestern University, 2006) 315.
[7] Roger L. Geiger, “Prologue: American Higher Education and World War II.” In American Higher Education since World War II: A History (Princeton University Press, 2019), XVII-XXII.
[8] Southwestern University, Board of Trustee Minutes Vol. 6 (1935-1947) (Georgetown, Texas: Southwestern University, 1935-1947), 347.
[9] Southwestern University, Executive Committee Minutes Vol. 5 (1942-1952) (Georgetown, Texas: Southwestern University, 1942-52), 30, 80.
[10] Southwestern University, Board of Trustee Minutes Vol. 6, 348.
[11] Geiger, “Prologue,” XIX.
[12] Southwestern University, Executive Committee Minutes Vol. 5, 129.
[13] Giordano, Wartime Schools: How World War II Changed American Education 141-154.
[14] Southwestern University, Board of Trustee Minutes Vol. 6, 219.
[15] Geiger, “Prologue,” XIX.
[16] United States. Bureau of Naval Personnel. Training Division, Navy V-12 Curricula Schedules, Course Descriptions (Washington, D.C.: Training Division, Bureau of Naval Personnel, U.S. Navy, 1943), 1-44.
[17] Southwestern University, Executive Committee Minutes Vol. 5, 129.
[18] Lord Bowden, “Effects of World War II on Education in Science.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series a, Mathematical and Physical Sciences vol. 342, no. 1631 (1975): 499-503.
[19] Louis E. Keefer, “Birth and Death of the Army Specialized Training Program.” Army History, no. 33 (1995), 1–7.
[20] Jones, To Survive and Excel, 390.