A CENTURY OF UK HEALTH EFFORTS

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.

Additional information about the history of women students, faculty, and staff can be found in the recently published, Our Rightful Place: A History of Women at the University of Kentucky, 1880-1945.

https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813179377/our-rightful-place/    

Use the code FAU25 for 25% off. 

DR. JANE HASELDEN, 1903-1991

Jane Haselden, a Lancaster, Kentucky native, graduated from Transylvania University in 1926 with a degree in French.  As a graduation present her parents sent Haselden to study in Paris for a year.  

Following her return to the United States she became a teacher, first in Beattyville, Kentucky and subsequently in her hometown of Lancaster.  While in Beattyville, Haselden achieved some notoriety for coaching the boys' basketball team at the local high school.  

During summers Haselden worked toward a master's degree at Columbia University, a goal she achieved in 1932.  After serving as Dean of Women at both Transylvania University and Murray State Teachers College in Western Kentucky, Haselden completed a Ph.D. in Psychology at UK.

Haselden also held a pilot’s license.  She and Anna Mayrell Johnson jointly owned an airplane and were known to rush out to the local airport during their lunch breaks to fly their plane over Lexington.  One time Haselden even flew her plane over Stoll Field during a football game between Kentucky and Alabama.  

Haselden and Johnson actively participated in the Kentucky chapter of the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of women pilots affiliated with the National Aeronautic Association in Washington D.C.  Haselden recalled that as the war began "casual flying" came to an end because the war changed things for everyone.   She was one of only three women who were members of the committee which drafted Kentucky's civil aviation regulations.

For additional information see:  

http://libguides.transy.edu/JaneHaselden  (Transylvania University)

Dean of Women Papers, Special Collections Research Center, UK Libraries

Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, UK Libraries
Interview with Jane Haselden, October 17, 1989
https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/ark:/16417/xt7ksn012j09
Interview with Jane Haselden, October 27, 1989

https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/ark:/16417/xt7z348gj469

A FORGOTTEN DEAN - JOSEPHINE PRICE SIMRALL

Dean Josephine Price Simrall

As a former dean I understand that some deans are forgettable.  But others deserve remembering.

Josephine Price Simrall was born the oldest of six daughters to Charles Barrington and Isabella Downing Price Simrall July 19, 1869 in Covington, Kentucky.  Simrall's mother attended Daughters College in Harrodsburg, Kentucky prior to the Civil War and her father became a highly regarded attorney for the Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Texas Pacific Railway Company.

Josephine Simrall earned a B.S. degree from Wellesley College in 1893.  She later earned a certificate from the Cincinnati Kindergarten Training School before doing graduate work at the University of Cincinnati, Johns Hopkins, and Columbia.  From 1916 to 1919 Simrall served as Head of Psychology and Instructor in English at Sweet Briar College.

President Frank McVey hired Simrall as Dean of Women and Assistant Professor of English at the University of Kentucky beginning in the fall of 1919.  Writing on her behalf Emilie W. McVea, president of Sweet Briar College, described Simrall as "an excellent teacher" with "unusual executive and administrative ability, and much social accustomness (sic)."

Chancellor Frank W. Chandler of the University of Cincinnati noted that "Miss Simrall is possessed of marked literary talent and was active in this community in the work of women's organizations."  He added that, "She is sympathetic and gentle in manner, but by no means lacking in force."

In addition to her administrative and teaching duties, Dean Simrall was active in campus events and even wrote and performed in campus plays.  But she resigned in the spring of 1921 to become Dean of Women at the University of Cincinnati where she served until 1933.

A Kentucky Kernel editorial noted that Dean Simrall would be returning "home" and stressed that she had been "notably successful in the supervising of the education of women."  Moreover, "Her sympathetic attitude toward women students and her perception of their needs as well as her ability to understand the student point of view are a few of the characteristics that contributed to her success."

Simrall's successor?  Another Seven Sisters graduate (Vassar) and English instructor at UK, Frances Jewell.   The newspaper described Jewell as "one of the outstanding figures in the university faculty."  She "brings to her new position rare knowledge of student life and problems and a personality that begets confidence and elicits admiration and respect.

Two year later Frances Jewell married President Frank McVey and gave up her positions as dean and instructor.  Nevertheless, she would become arguably the best known and most highly regarded woman in UK's long history.  But Frances Jewell McVey would want us to remember and acknowledge her successful and all but forgotten predecessor, Josephine Price Simrall.