DUCK AND COVER

Clyde Lilly, Chairman of the University Safety and Emergency Subcommittee

Recent international events remind anyone who lived through the height of the cold war tensions and the Cuban Missile Crisis that threat of a nuclear war were very real.  Newspapers regularly showed huge maps on their front pages of how far the damage would spread across the countryside if specific cities or military installations were struck.  Nuclear radiation from the blast would permeate even more of the nation.

Schools held regular bomb drills during which students were told to duck and cover under their little school desks.  Buildings that might provide the most shelter, usually in a basement, during an attack were marked with large signs so the public would know where to go.  One might even come across a display for a home fallout shelter for sale in the parking lot of a local shopping center.

By the spring of 1962 fourteen buildings had been designated by the UK Campus Safety and Emergency Subcommittee as fallout shelter areas.  The committee reported that 4,196 people could be sheltered safely on the main campus while the Medical Center Complex could accommodate another 2,000.  Yellow signs measuring 12 by 20 inches with black lettering were placed outside of each designated building.

Among the UK buildings chosen were:

Taylor Education Building

Holmes Hall

Keeneland Hall

Barker Hall

Lafferty Hall

Fine Arts Building

Funkhouser Building

Home Economics Building

Memorial Hall

Students Playing cards in a fallout shelter in Taylor Education Building
during a shelter manager instruction class. 

Three years earlier a "family fallout shelter" had been constructed in Maxwell Place, the home of President Frank Dickey and his young family.  President Dickey reported to the UK Board of Trustees at their November 20, 1959 meeting that "he had been requested" to allow the shelter to be constructed in Maxwell Place by the Office of Civilian Defense Mobilization.  The $1,500 shelter "could be used as a sample and viewed by the public" to "encourage private citizens to construct their own fallout shelters."

Governor Bert Combs and President Frank Dickey
inspecting the Maxwell Place Fallout Shelter

President Dickey noted that "his first reaction" to the proposed shelter "was negative but it seemed desirable "even though it would cause some trouble" to cooperate with the federal officials.  He recommended approval by the board and following "a few questions" the board approved the proposal.

Fortunately, the shelters were never needed.

KIRWAN: RELATIVE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

As the academic year opened fifty years ago in the fall of 1968, University of Kentucky leadership was transitioning.  President John Oswald resigned the previous spring following political sparring with Kentucky's new governor, Louie B. Nunn who also served as Chair of the UK Board of Trustees.  During his five year tenure as president, Oswald oversaw major changes in UK's academic program and faculty culture as well as a physical transformation of the campus.

Albert D. Kirwan

Albert D. Kirwan, a soft-spoken, scholarly, former football coach now led UK as president on an interim basis.  He faced a local community which felt alienated from the growing university, a student culture becoming more vocal about their needs both academically and socially, and high expectations left behind by his predecessor.  He and Betty Kirwan brought much needed stability, if only temporary, to the campus as they opened up Maxwell Place, the president's home, to the community.

Kirwan assured the press that, "My goal is to keep the impetus going.  There will be no slacking off.  I intend to give students and faculty confidence that the show will still go on."  Speaking to a convocation of new students and their parents Kirwan estimated that he would be president for only several more months as a committee was already hard at work to select a permanent president. 

Kirwan spoke proudly of his predecessor accomplishments to grow the university and the community college system adding that, "Most notable of all we have recruited many new faculty who are young, vibrant, and dynamic."  Kirwan counseled the first year students that "they would have a major role in the shaping of their university, especially today in a time of increasing trends to violence and instability.

Kirwan served until August, 1969, guiding the university firmly and steadily through a difficult and unsettled time at UK.  At its September, 1969 meeting, the UK Board of Trustees retroactively named Albert D. "Ab" Kirwan the "Seventh President of the University of Kentucky."  Kirwan returned to his teaching and research and witnessed his successor's efforts to deal with growing student unrest including demonstrations following the Kent State shootings that closed the university.

Kirwan died November 30, 1971


Additional information can be found at:

Kentucky Kernel, August 27, 1968

Frank Mathias, Albert D. Kirwan (University Press of Kentucky, 1975)

Kirwan bio:  https://libraries.uky.edu/libpage.php?lweb_id=326&llib_id=13