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. 

WBKY/WUKY

Today, March 19, 2018, WUKY marks a new era of broadcasting in its new off-campus facility.

University of Kentucky radio broadcasting began in April, 1929 when Dr. Frank L. McVey announced into a radio microphone in Lexington: "The University is on the air...."  For the broadcast of educational programs from studios on the Lexington campus, WHAS Radio in Louisville (Kentucky's first radio station) agreed to install all necessary equipment and direct telephone lines; the university and the station would share equally the transmission charges.

This agreement began a partnership which attracted national attention.  President McVey's, somewhat apprehensive about the whole idea but willing to take a change with it, expressed his hopes for the medium during the maiden broadcast:

"Life is faster with greater possibilities and subject to disasters as always.  This is the sort of universe we live in.  Now comes the radio, bringing to every part of the world the sound of the human voice from every country of the globe.  No such possibilities of good and no such opportunity for mere bunk, have been offered to the public as through this amazing invention.  The University of Kentucky is not interested in adding to the trivial, so two important forces for constructive effort in our state have agreed to cooperate in giving to the radio audience, what is hoped will be interesting, stimulating and helpful."

From the WHAS studio in Louisville, owner Robert Worth Bingham, who also owned the Louisville Courier-Journal and Louisville Times, reiterated WHAS's noble intentions of reaching the isolated and uneducated -- "it is for those whose need is greatest who fill my mind as I think of what this work of our may mean to them."

The University of Kentucky programs were aired Monday through Friday at noon, initially for fifteen minutes and expanded by 1931 to forty-five.  While primarily offering agricultural information, lectures on a variety of topics, as well as musical presentations, were also offered.  From the beginning, the university appreciated its responsibility, and under the guidance of Elmer G. "Bromo" Sulzer, who began his work at UK in public relations, energetically and successfully lobbied for the expansion of its radio commitment.

For additional information see "WHAS Radio and the Development of Broadcasting in Kentucky, 1922-1942"
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.bing.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1014&context=libraries_facpub