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The notion of the “Sixties” evokes national stereotypes of social and political upheaval.

There were significant changes in that era, of course, but they were neither all dramatic nor contained in a decade. And still, from 1963 to about 1974, Wittenberg experienced a period of rapid change that we may call its “Sixties.”

What changed then that really counted? Was college life accompanied by protest and confrontation? By Black Power? Student Power? Feminism? Marxism? A long-hair, jeans-dressing, drug-popping, rock-bopping counterculture? And by the way, where were the faculty and administration all that time?

Well, like almost all of higher education, Wittenberg was breaking from established patterns.

The number and distribution of students and faculty, student lifestyle and social regulations, sports and athletics changed. The campus roles of African Americans and women, independents and Greeks altered, along with the way these groups saw themselves. There were changes in campus activities, in the curriculum and calendar, in teaching styles, student and faculty governance, and even the campus. There was a discernable shift in the orientation of Wittenberg as a liberal arts college.

The changes during Wittenberg’s Sixties created frustration, anxiety and exhilaration for students, faculty and administrators. Interaction among these groups made change an intensely self-conscious process because it heightened issues of identity. That was one theme throughout the era. A second was the difficulty of containing change: the process threatened to get out of hand, and that increased campus tension.

In time, responsibility became more shared and governance restructured. Relationships between students and faculty grew somewhat less formal, the community’s outlook more cosmopolitan, learning better oriented to the modern world. All that was hard to see for those of us at Wittenberg then because the process was indeed accompanied by turbulence and was aggravated by the Vietnam War as it broke upon our ivy-covered world.

Pressing the Box

In 1963 freshmen donned their beanies and entered a college regulated by rules and traditions, the college described with vibrant nostalgia by David Arnold ’59 in the Wittenberg Magazine (Spring 2000). It was Alma Mater and fraternity-sorority sing, Homecoming and football, Tiger fever, spring pinnings and campus legends. It was the intellectual domain of a faculty “weighty with dignity.” And even though dorms had lives of their own, the campus was the social domain of its Greeks.

Above all, Wittenberg in the Fifties was the domain of President Clarence C. Stoughton (1949-1963). Ruddy and red-haired, he had a rough wit and cherished tradition, especially Lutheran tradition. “Prexy,” most called him; “Papa,” a few said privately because of the affectionate paternalism with which he administered the college. He built Faculty Court because he wanted professors to live close to campus. “We are a family,” he said, “a community, where the essence of our living is sharing of insights and aims and experiences.”

Prexy was an effective fund-raiser who envisioned Wittenberg as a quality small university—as the premier Lutheran institution of higher learning. From 1949, when he took office, he doubled the number of campus buildings and launched a major expansion of students and faculty. He valued the national recognition attained in football and basketball and by the Wittenberg Choir. In 1959 his board of directors renamed Wittenberg a university, recognizing its professional degree programs in music, divinity, education, business administration, nursing, home economics and the fine arts. Following a heart ailment early in 1959, Stoughton seemed to pursue his vision ever more intensely and arbitrarily, pressing the box outward in many ways.

Still, he sought to contain his aspiration for a university within Wittenberg’s traditional college style and orientation. His attempt created a tension that increased following his retirement in June 1963. His successor was the professor of psychology that he had promoted to be dean of the college, John N. Stauffer (1963-1968).

Tall and soft-spoken, Stauffer was highly regarded by the faculty for his intellect, integrity and breadth of view. Early in his presidency he strode between rows of professors lined up for convocation at the lower entrance of the Weaver Chapel tower. The two doors were etched with representations of “knowledge” and “life” respectively. Jerry Graham, a young political science teacher, opened a door and said, “enter the portal of knowledge.” Stauffer didn’t miss a step. He opened the other door and replied, “I prefer life.”

The new president announced that there would be broad changes at Wittenberg. Speaking to the board on June 17, 1963, he projected two years of planning and five years of development for every aspect of the institution. He encouraged the faculty to take on more responsibility, rotating department chairs and supporting younger proessors in leadership roles. He appointed a Long Range Curriculum Study Committee and named Allan O. Pfnister (dean 1963-1967 and provost to 1969), a college curriculum specialist from the University of Michigan, to shepherd the whole process of review and innovation. Both men stressed systematic planning and calibrated transition.

Neither could have anticipated the scope, pace and tensions of the changes they forecast, and no one expected the extent to which racial issues would disrupt and refocus Wittenberg.

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