CHAPTER V
Enter Samuel E. Braden.!
Tenth President
WHEN PRESIDENT BONE announced his plans for retirement in September 1967, he asked the Board of Governors
to draw up procedures for the selection of a successor. Very
soon a Committee of Seven on the Selection of a New President set about its serious business. The Committee was composed of one member selected from each of the four colleges,
a member selected by the department heads, a member named
by the Administration and the President of the University
Council who was to serve as chairman. FacuIty members were
invited to submit names of persons who they believed would be
imaginative and capable administrators, to succeed Dr. Bone.
From faculty, alumni, personal applications and other sources
a roster of over 200 was compiled, then the screening began.
The list was quickly reduced to seventy active candidates; after
careful investigation the list was narrowed down to seven. Six
of the presidential candidates and their wives were invited to
Normal to meet representatives of the faculty and administration. They also met with students and the Civil Service Council
at afternoon receptions and Saturday evening dinners. Later
each group was asked to make comment and rate in order of
preference the one they thought would make a good president
for Illinois State University. The three finalists were visited by
members of the Committee on their own campuses.
On May 15 the Board of Governors announced that Dr.
Samuel E. Braden, 52, Vice-President and Dean for Undergraduate Development at Indiana University, had been selected
to become tenth president of Illinois State University, effective
September 1, 1967. 1
1
Daily Pantagraph, May 15, 1967; Vidette, May 16, 1967.
100
Samuel Braden
Tenth President
1967-
Enter Samuel E. Braden, Tenth President
101
At Indiana University Dr. Braden's responsibility had been
to encourage the development of the university's undergraduate
program to keep it in a balance with the over-all growth of
the institution and had involved coordination of the freshman
division, the division of student personnel, the office of records
and admissions, the director of women's educational programs
and the student health service; and also he had directed the
regional campuses of Indiana University and coordinated activities in the fields of economic and educational opportunity.
At the same time he had served as executive director of the
Indiana Conference on Higher Education, through which all
the colleges and universities of Indiana cooperate to meet the
State's higher educational needs. 2 He was trained as an economist.
Dr. Braden was born at Hoihow, Hainan, China, where his
parents were on a missionary assignment. They returned to
the United States the following year. Samuel Braden graduated
from the University of Oklahoma in 1932 with a bachelor's
degree in economics and political science. He earned his master's degree at the University of Wisconsin in 1935, and a
doctorate in economics and law from Wisconsin in 1941. At
the Presbyterian Student Center in Madison he met Beth Black
of Richland Center, Wisconsin, who later became his wife. He
was an economics instructor at Indiana University 1937-42 and
spent a year in Washington, D.C., as senior economist for the
Raw Materials Board 1942-43.
Dr. Braden entered the Air Force as a private in 1943 and
was separated from the service as a first lieutenant in 1946. He
returned to Indiana University after World War II and spent
1949-50 in Great Britain as a Fullbright senior research fellow
at the London School of Economics. In 1954 he became Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Indiana University, and in 1959 was named Vice-President and Dean for
Undergraduate Development.
Dr. Braden is the author of Economics: Principles and Problems and Economic Problems of War and has written extensively for financial and educational magazines. He has been
active in economic associations.
2
Weekly Report, Illinois State University, May 19, 1967.
102
The Eleventh Decade
Dr. Braden and his wife, Beth, are the parents of four children: Mary Beth, 23, a graduate of the University of Michigan
now engaged in research with a firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Stephen, 20, studying history at the University of Michigan; John, 17, who will be a senior in high school; and David,
15, a sophomore in September. 3
On Thursday May 25, President-elect and Mrs. Braden made
their first official visit to Normal and were honored with a reception in the Union ballroom, given by the Committee on the
Selection of a President, the University Council and President
and Mrs. Bone. Over one thousand persons attended. From
four until after six, the tall, athletic, gray-haired man, chosen
to be Illinois State University's tenth president, and his attractive and gracious wife stood along with the Bones, Shumans
and Hardens,4 shaking hands with faculty, staff and townspeople. There was a twinkle in Dr. Braden's blue eyes, a friendly
smile on his face, strength and warmth in his firm handclasp.
Mrs. Braden echoed her husband's joy in meeting people.
Settling in with the Bradens would not be difficult; already
they seemed like friends. Beth Braden could be expected to
share her choicest recipes with the Newcomers Club and anyone from a vice-president to kindergartners waving to the grayhaired man on a bicycle would get a cheery salute in turn.
Samuel E. Braden will be taking over a large enterprise, one
that a century before President Edwards called the "Grandest
of Enterprises." Today Illinois State University's land and
buildings, exclusive of equipment are valued at $54,000,000; its
total budget for the biennium, 1967-69, is $52,800,000, of which
the operating budget covering salaries and wages, maintenance
and supplies, amounts to $38,445,052, and the capital budget for
land and buildings, $14,000,000, already earmarked for a College of Education building, a Graduate Studies Center, and a
General Services building. Also off the drawing boards and
approved for construction are a $12,000,000 Union complex
and another 100-unit residence court for married students to
be constructed from the sale of revenue bonds. A $15,200,000
a Daily Pantagraph, May 21, 1967.
4 Dr. Stanley Shuman, Professor of Geography and Chairman of the University Council; Dr. Warren Harden, Head of Department of Economics
and Chairman of the Committee on the Selection of a President.
Enter Samuel E. Braden} Tenth President
103
self-liquidating project consisting of two twenty-seven story
residence halls to be known as Watterson Towers, and the
Adlai E. Stevenson Hall for the Humanities are under construction. Dr. Braden will have with him a working force of over
800 faculty, 700 non-academic employees, and 10,500 students.
Ever-abiding will be the problems of curriculum and parking.
In 1967 education is big business.
In reply to a letter asking Dr. Braden his thoughts on becoming tenth president of Illinois State University he revealed
himself to be a man greatly concerned about people. He wrote:
Illinois State University today, as it was a century ago, is people.
To be sure, people are more numerous today. The faculty has
grown eighty fold, from 9 to more than 720; the student body has
grown thirty fold, from 327 to 10,000. Yet whatever their numbers,
it is people who make up an institution, and it is the aspirations of
people which set goals for the institution.
Many of our personal aspiratioons, of course, are selfish. As it is
certainly proper during their university years, students are concerned primarily with the intellectual self-development that will
make them effective in the world of service they are to enter later
on. Faculty members must be sensitive to their professional growth
and recognition as well as to the growth of their students. To keep
our equitability, all of us must put health and pursuit of happiness
in high priority. But these are only part of our dreams.
Those of us who are teachers commit ourselves to careers of helping young people surpass us in their understanding and their creativity. A university must create a climate favorable to efficient
learning, one in which innovation is not only easy but characteristic. No aspiration can be more unselfish, no calling more important than this.
If our personal objectives are clear, what then is our role as an
institution? Except for the individual examples of dignity, honesty,
and industry we set for our students, most of the things we want
to do are done better in concert with our colleagues. Together we
can provide the total curriculum no one part of us could offer
alone. Together we can train students in both theory and practice,
in professional as well as in general fields and in depth as well as
breadth. The University's view is universal. For example, though
I know I cannot see everything, I know that if what I do see I
comprehend well, my competence will be respected by my colleagues. If each of us combines competence with tolerance, we
are far stronger together than we could ever be alone.
104
The Eleventh Decade
The changes of the past century and especially those of the last
decade have been remarkable, but they are not finished. The challenge of the next decade is for us to build new areas of strength
without weakening any now in existence and worthy of continuance. No part of our University has anything to gain from weakness in any other part. I am sure I am the more likely to succeed
in reaching my goals if others, too, are successful.
As though embracing the entire academic community he concluded. "Let us then resolve, as individuals and as a corporate
body, that what we in Illinois State University consider to be
worth doing, we will do well." 5
5 Samuel E. Braden, Bloomington, Indiana, May 25, 1967, to Holen E. Marshall, Normal, Illinois.