The William Jewell college story

Baptist History and Heritage, Summer-Fall, 1999 by David O. Moore

Housed also in the college library, are six large volumes by Balthasar Hubmaier, written in script, and provided through the efforts of President Greene. When secured, in 1938, W. O. Lewis, commissioner of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, and former teacher at William Jewell, arranged for all the known manuscript material of this famous Anabaptist to be photocopied. They were later translated by professor George W. Davidson of the college's department of modern languages.

On 25 May 1923, Greene's presidency closed. He spoke in chapel that day and took for his topic "Cheerfulness and Self-control." He was speaking strongly when "the bell rang in the midst of a sentence, and Dr. Greene stopped talking--with that, thirty years of chapel talks went into history." Dr. Greene, the resident "priest" to hundreds of "his boys," as he referred to them, retired that spring to a home in California.

From a "Priest" to a "Pope" and Beyond

The college mascot name is Cardinals. It turned out that over time the Cardinals had a "Priest" (Greene) and a "Pope" (Binns) for president. Between their tenures as president, John F. Herget was selected, and a biblical quotation, "There was a man sent from God whose name was John" (John 1:6), came to be applied to him. These three, the "prophet, John"; the "priest, Greene"; and the "pope, Binns" were exceedingly important in the continuing well-being of the college.

Dr. Herget needed to heal the wounds of a previously fractured administration in which a president and six faculty members had resigned. He did this with exceptional skill. His leadership recruited students, reduced debt requirements, strengthened denominational ties, built new and up-dated old buildings; saw the departments of Bible and philosophy endowed and raised total endowment from $400,000 to a value of almost $2.5 million.

Following Herget's tenure, Jewell entered the postwar years. Walter Pope Binns became president in July 1943. His was the task of seeing the college through the closing war years, of preparing for the return of GIs and other students while he made plans for the second century of the college's existence. His goals: stabilize enrollment at 500 students; endow twelve departments of the liberal arts; increase general endowment, and improve physical structures. Much of this he achieved, although only six departments were endowed by his retirement.

Binns's management style was unique and decisive. A spring ritual for all faculty was the granting of contracts. There was no tenure. Once a young prospective teacher raised the tenure question and Dr. Binns informed him, "Yes, we have tenure. All faculty have tenure. If their work is satisfactory they can remain as long as they desire. Of course, unsatisfactory work will always bring termination."

At another contract time, a faculty member sought to have a way of gaining an increase in salary. With his new contract in hand, said faculty person entered the president's office with a report that he had a $1,000 dollar increase in salary offer from another school. Would the president want to match that so he would stay? Dr. Binns replied, "So you have another offer of $1,000 more? Sounds pretty good to me. Give me your contract, and if I were you, I'd just accept the other school's offer." The faculty member went looking, since it had been a bluff all along.