Office of the President records

Collection

Identifier: UR-01-011

Staff Only

Scope and content note

Historical note: Four presidents of Drexel University are represented in the collection: James Creese (1896-1966, president 1945-1963), William Walsh Hagerty (1916-1986, president 1963-1984), William Samuel Gaither (b. 1932, president 1984-1987), and Richard Breslin (b. 1937 or 1938, president 1988-1994). Scope/content: This collection consists of subject files, reports, and other materials compiled by the staff of the Office of the President between 1950 and 1989, overlapping the terms of several presidents. It contains substantial material on the University City Science Center and President Gaither's long-range plan developed in the 1980s.

Series 1 James Creese: Sub Series A General Administrative Files (4 folders). These are administrative files on the Evening College and the environmental engineering program at Drexel.

Series 2 W.W. Hagerty contains two sub-series. The first is Sub-Series A General Administrative Files (34 folders) has department plans, long-range plans for school development, Board of Trustee Seminars, data on ACT 101 and minority enrollment at Drexel, financial planning including state aid, conferences, and material from the Inauguration of Peter J. Liacouras, President of Temple University. Sub-Series B Schools and Colleges (9 folders) includes material from individual colleges of the engineering department at Drexel.

Series 3 William S. Gaither contains nine sub-series. Sub-Series A General Administrative Files (43 folders) has material on buildings and real estate growth for Drexel, honorary degree nominees, publicity, student issues, financial administration of Drexel, issues of community relations with the surrounding area including Powelton Village, and the development of a microcomputing system for Drexel.

Sub-Series B is Committees (18 folders) which has material on diverse organizations Gaither was involved with including the Committee to Support Philadelphia Public Schools and other outside organizations.

Sub-Series C is Controversy (3 folders) includes photocopies of newspaper articles on Gaither’s resignation in 1987.

Sub-Series D, Faculty and Personnel (6 folders) contains material on faculty orientation, guides for faculty and administrators, and a study on faculty.

Sub-Series E Inauguration (8 folders) has programs, addresses, general publications and correspondence on Gaither’s Inauguration in 1985.

Sub-Series F Long-Range Plans (34 folders) contains reports, correspondence, drafts, memos, and other items on the Long-Range Plan developed during Gaither’s tenure at Drexel. There is material from Board of Trustee workshops on the Plan and transparencies from presentations.

Sub-Series G Personal and Professional Papers (9 folders) contains folders from Gaither’s career prior to Drexel including material on the University of Delaware and his work as the Director of the Sea Grants Program there. There are also copies of speeches he gave to various organizations and a folder on his career prior to Drexel including bibliographies and resumes.

Sub-Series H Schools and Colleges (6 folders) includes material on the Restaurant School at Drexel, the nursing program, cooperative educations, and the physical education program at Drexel.

Sub-Series I, University City Science Center (20 folders) has financial data on the Center, material on the administration of the Center, annual meetings, reports, and folders on the Advanced Technology Center of the UCSC.

Series 4 Richard Breslin Sub-Series A General Administrative Files (10 folders) includes campus plans, committee reports, correspondence, surveys of sophomores, and other administrative files.

Series 5 Multiple Presidents (24 folders) contains those folders with material spanning the tenure of more than one president of Drexel. This series varies widely in scope and content including material on departments and schools of Drexel, organizations, luncheons hosted by Drexel, meetings between Deans the Vice-President of Drexel, accreditation, the American Council on Education, and relationships between Drexel and corporations.

The materials include correspondence, reports, memoranda, programs, publications, photocopies, speeches and addresses, drafts of reports, newspaper clippings, budgets, minutes, agendas, and transparencies.

Arrangement: Portions of the collection are arranged alphabetically by subject within each box, but there is no overall order discernable to the entire collection. Related collections: Creese papers, Hagerty papers, Breslin papers, Gaither papers. Subjects: Drexel University--History Drexel University--Administration University City Science Center College presidents

Dates

1950-1989

Creator

Creese, James (Person)

Biographical/historical note

James Creese served as the president of the Drexel Institute from 1945 to 1963. His tenure began with a tremendous influx of students in the post-WWII years and continued to oversee tremendous growth of the Institute, both in the physical expansion of its campus and in the development of its academic programs, especially in engineering and cooperative education. Such extensive development required major capital investments, for which two major fundraising campaigns were undertaken during Creese’s leadership. Creese was also active in a number of local and national organizations, serving on numerous committees and sitting on the boards of several prominent local institutions. He resigned as president of Drexel in 1963 and died three years later in 1966.

Drexel’s eighth president, William Walsh Hagerty, served from 1963 to 1984. Born in Holyoke, Minnesota, in 1916, Dr. Hagerty was educated as an engineer at the universities of Minnesota and Michigan. Before coming to Drexel, he was dean of the college of engineering at the University of Texas. He served as an adviser to NASA and a board member of the National Science Foundation and was appointed by president Lyndon Johnson to the board of the Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) in 1965. He died of cancer in Savannah, Georgia, in 1986 at the age of 69. William S. Gaither was born in Indiana in 1932. He studied civil engineering at the Rose Polytechnic Institute, graduating in 1956. Before continuing with his graduate education he worked for the Meyer Corporation, the Dravo Corporation, and the Bechtel Corporation as an engineer. In 1964 he received a Ph.D from Princeton University concentrating his work on marine transportation and ocean engineering. He taught at Princeton University and the University of Florida.

In 1967 he started an ocean engineering program at the University of Delaware. In 1970 he was offered the position of Dean and Professor of the College of Marine Studies at Delaware where he was also the Sea Grant Program Director. This Program is an organization which honors colleges that have developed a curriculum for studying the oceans and human impact on them. During his career he frequently testified to Congress on environmental and oceanographic issues. In 1984 he left the University of Delaware for the position of President of Drexel where he created eleven new majors and increased alumni giving. Gaither’s Inauguration as President of Drexel was held on April 27, 1985. He also worked on programs to enhance minority student enrollment at Drexel. During his tenure at Drexel he was on the boards of the University City Science Center, the PenJerDel Council, and the West Philadelphia Partnership.

In April of 1987, a female staff member alleged that Gaither had made inappropriate sexual advances to her. She made a formal complaint, but withdrew it when he apologized. The Board of Trustees gave him a vote of no confidence during the summer of 1987 and he was forced to resign.

see Gaither Personal Information in 1.11 Office of the President, Series 3 and 1.9 William S. Gaither Administrative Files

http://www.drexel.edu/papadakis/newcomen/index.html accessed 4/8/08.

http://www.seagrant.noaa.gov/aboutsg/historyofsg.html, accessed 04/04/2008 1:18 p.m.

Richard David Breslin (b. 1937 or 1938), Drexel's tenth president, began his academic career in 1968 at Villanova University, where he became dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1972. He later became vice president for academic affairs at Iona College and president of the University of Charleston in West Virginia. Dr. Breslin served as president of Drexel from 1988 to 1994.

Extent

5 Cubic Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Four presidents of Drexel University are represented in the collection: James Creese (1896-1966, president 1945-1963), William Walsh Hagerty (1916-1986, president 1963-1984), William Samuel Gaither (b. 1932, president 1984-1987), and Richard Breslin (b. 1937 or 1938, president 1988-1994).

This collection consists of subject files, reports, and other materials compiled by the staff of the Office of the President between 1950 and 1989, overlapping the terms of several presidents. It contains substantial material on the University City Science Center and President Gaither's long-range plan developed in the 1980s.

The materials include correspondence, reports, memorandum, drafts, inauguration programs, pamphlets, brochures, drafts of reports,newspaper clippings and photocopies, minutes, agendas, and transparencies. Arrangement: Portions of the collection are arranged alphabetically by subject within each box.

Arranged into five series

Series 1 James Creese Sub-Series A General Administrative Files Series 2 W.W. Hagerty Sub-Series A General Administrative Files Sub-Series B Schools and Colleges Series 3 William S. Gaither Sub-Series A General Administrative Files Sub-Series B Committees Sub-Series C Controversy Sub-Series D Faculty and Personnel Sub-Series E Inauguration Sub-Series F Long-Range Plan Sub-Series G Personal and Professional Papers Sub-Series H Schools and Colleges Sub-Series I University City Science Center Series 4 Breslin Series 5 Multiple Administrations

Office of the President 1.11

James Creese
W.W. Hagerty
William S. Gaither
Richard Breslin
Multiple Administrations

Location

Materials are stored off-site. Advance notice is required for use.

Provenance

Transferred from the Office of the President, Drexel University

Related materials

For more information about the academic career of the four presidents in this collection see UR 1.5 Office of the President papers, UR 1.7 James Creese Administrative Files, UR 1.8 W.W. Hagerty Administrative files (unprocessed-04/08), UR 1.9 William S. Gaither Administrative Files at the Drexel University Archives

Bibliography

Biographical Notes from the Collection. Office of the President 1.11, Series 3 and 1.9 William S. Gaither Administrative Files

http://www.drexel.edu/papadakis/newcomen/index.html accessed 4/8/08.http://www.seagrant.noaa.gov/aboutsg/historyofsg.html, accessed 04/04/2008 1:18 p.m.
Kotzin, Miriam N. A History of Drexel University. Drexel University Press, Philadelphia, PA. 1983, pp 79-173.

Processing information

This collection was reprocessed by Robin Elliot, Cheryl Klimaszewski, and Katelyn Wolfrom in 2008. The finding aid and box and folder lists were revised and expanded at that time. Though the collection was organized intellectually into series, general physical arrangement of the records was not changed.