University Of Missouri News - September 25, 1952

[photograph of trailer on Dairy Lawn]

[caption]

The last trailer to leave Dairy Lawn.

Family Living on Campus Diminishes With Passing of GI Trailer Villages

Above is a picture of a waning era in American education--a single house trailer--standing forsaken in a spot on the University campus where two short years ago it was crowded by 130 of its kind.
It marks the passing of an era which saw many of the historic concepts of higher education shattered and revised. During that hectic period eager students released from war service flocked to college campuses by the hundreds of thousands.
This is the last trailer about to leave the site of Dairy Lawn, a short while ago a lusty and bustling community, one of three such trailer camps in the heart of the University campus. This is the second of the camps to expire, and the third has but a handful of remaining trailers which are counting their last months in college.
University officials and others had watched with considerable interest as this trailer and others with it invaded the campus in 1946, but it left almost unnoticed, apparently important only to a group of small boys who resented its interference with their baseball game.

Utilized to the Fullest

The trailer camp has been a vital part of the American college theme during the past six years, and nowhere was it utilized earlier or to more advantage than at the University of Missouri.
World War II was still in its middle phases, with American forces fighting their way inch by inch in the Pacific when authorities at the University of Missouri began a serious study of possible problems which might confront higher education if the war should end suddenly.
Dr. Thomas A. Brady, then professor of history and now vice-president of the University in charge of extra-divisional educational activities, was assigned to direct a study of the social and academic factors involved and make recommendations for future action. Whether or not Dr. Brady used a crystal ball, whether he had clairvoyant powers, or whether he was just an exceptionally thorough analyst--there is no question about his analysis having been accurate.

Committee Is Formed

On the basis of his report, a veteran's committee was appointed by President Frederick A. Middlebush with Dr. Brady as its chairman to prepare the University for the impact of education-hungry veterans which he predicted. The impact came, and the University was as nearly ready as it was possible to be under war-time conditions.
As the trickle of returning war veterans suddenly became a flood, housing was the most critical problem. Five years of war had not only halted all building in Columbia, but it had prevented repairs, remodeling, or even essential maintenance of existing housing which had accommodated the normal pre-war enrollment.
The problem of housing the students was turned over to Leslie Cowan, vice-president of the University in charge of business operations, to whom a serious problem is only a challenge. Here was a doubly troublesome situation. Not only must housing be found for GI students, but also housing for students' wives and children.

Many Trailers Hauled In

Almost before the Veteran's Committee could say "Where will we put them?" Mr. Cowan had, with the vigorous cooperation of the Federal Housing Agency, started a fleet of trucks bringing in a string of government-owned trailer houses from war industry centers in Illinois, Indiana and Nebraska and depositing them on property owned by the University. Mr. Cowan also had energetic cooperation from engineers of the Missouri State Health Departmnet who helped plan the layout and arrangement of the camps and facilities.
Continued expansion saw three separate trailer camps established on the University Campus with a total of 165 of the trailers leased from the Federal government and approximately an equal number of privately-owned trailers for which the University provided space and sanitary facilities.
Only married veterans and their wives and families were permitted to live in the trailer camps, but approximately 1,500 veterans have made their homes in these houses-on-wheels while they attended classes at the University. Some occupied trailers for only one or two semesters; others have remained for four years or more, long enough to obtain their bachelor degrees and go on with graduate studies. Children nearing school age have known no other home.

Vigorous Communities

The trailer camps became communities within a community. Each camp set up its own civic control, elected a mayor and a
"city" council, had various committees to plan social and sports programs and to represent the residents in session with other groups and organizations. These were vigorous, energetic, and closely knit communities.

[photograph of the Dairy Lawn filled with trailers]

[caption]

Dair Lawn, when it was a bustling trailer community.


They demanded and won the right to be active not only in University community affairs, but also in the civic affairs of the city of Columbia. They supported the Columbia Community Chest, the Red Cross and other deserving organizations.
Prior to World War II a University student who was married was a rarity, usually found only during the Summer Sessions when teachers and professional persons took refresher courses, but now the GI student had brought a new social order to the campus. A baby show and contest to select the healthiest children and the prettiest children of student parents became an annual campus affair. When the University enrollment reached its peak in the fall of 1947, there were more than 7,000 students under GI benefits on the Columbia campus and about a third of them were married.
Furthermore, of the married students, a third had children. That same semester there were 2,000 GI students enrolled in the University's School of Mines and Metallurgy at Rolla, where the problems proved the same and the same solutions were worked out.

Surplus Buildings, Too

Trailers were not the only solution. The University bought, borrowed or begged Army surplus buildings, cut them into sections for easy transport to Columbia, and erected them as emergency dormitories and apartments, classrooms and office buildings. In all more than 400 of these emergency buildings were erected for housing and other uses on the Columbia campus.
The highest enrollment in the Columbia divisions of the University prior to the war had been 5,670 in the fall of 1941, and the School of Mines and Metallurgy had its pre-war record of 907 at that same time for a grand total enrollment of 6,577 in all divisions. This record had fallen during the war to a low of fewer than 3,000 students in all divisions.
The post-war climb began in the fall of 1945 when the first rush of GI students had increased the Columbia enrollment to a total of 6,657. One year later this number had reached 10,236 student, and in the fall of 1947
the enrollment had hit the record high of 11,452 in the Columbia divisions and 2,635 in the School of Mines and Metallurgy at Rolla for a total of 14,087 students in all divisions. Of these, 9,062 were enrolled under GI educational benefits and scores of others were war veterans but were saving their educational benefits for their professional and graduate study.

Gradual Decline Begins

Then began a gradual decline in enrollment coupled with an increasing number of graduates. In 1950 the number of degrees granted to graduates by the University exceeded the total number of students enrolled in the University fifteen years before. Husbands and wives graduated together while baby sitters attended their children.
By the Fall Semester of 1950 the enrollment of GI students had declined from the peak of 9,062 to only 3,237, or little more than a third, for all divisions, and by last fall this had decreased further to a total of only 1,524 in all divisions out of a total enrollment of nearly 9,000 students. For the new semester beginning this month, University officials were anticipating an enrollment of about 500 GI students
In other words, World War II is about to come to a close so far as the University of Missouri GI enrollment is concerned. But only recently Congress passed a GI educational bill for the benefit of vetera11s of Korea. This is on an entirely different basis than that of World War II, and University officials cannot even hazard a close guess as to how soon or how much it will affect the enrollment here.