During his annual presentation to the UK University Senate this week, President Eli Capilouto, as expected, devoted considerable time to discussing the current Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the campus.
Exactly one hundred years ago, then UK President Frank L. McVey also had the health of the campus on his mind. Addressing the UK Board of Trustees at its September, 1920 meeting, McVey reported on the steps he was taking regarding the health and welfare of students, staff, and faculty.
"As previously reported ...we have received a subsidy of $11,100 from the U.S. Department of Hygiene and Public Health. As head of the new department we have secured the services of Dr. P.K. Holmes of Ohio Wesleyan University. He had the degree of A.B. and in addition a medical degree from Bowden Medical School. As assistants we have secured Dr. Ireland from Bowden Medical School and Dr. Eva Locke a practicing physician in New York City. Miss Tillie Greathouse, who was a nurse with the Barrow Unit in England during the war, has been added to the Department as nurse."
"The Department will be housed
in Neville Hall. There is need of an isolation hospital or isolation
rooms for students with contagious diseases. The city hospitals have no
such provisions, but the University has a small infirmary for women.
There is a small two story brick building behind Mechanical Hall, heretofore
used as a storage room that could probably be arranged for an isolation ward for
men."
Dr. Holmes died four year later after a brief illness leaving a widow and four small children. His widow, Sarah Bennett Holmes, successfully raised the children and completed her undergraduate degree (1929) and a graduate degree (1939) while working to support her family. She became Dean of Women following the departure of Sarah Blanding in 1940. She helped lead UK through the World War II years and advocated tirelessly for equal rights for women students.
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