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- Dr. Jean Battle
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. Jean Battle
Today is December 8, 2005. My name is Dr. Lou Bowers and I am interviewing Dean Jean Battle, the first dean of the College of Education of the University of South Florida. Dean Battle has graciously invited me to his home so that he can share his experiences of his deanship during the first eleven years of the University.
LB: Dean Battle, let’s go back to the time before you came to USF. How did you learn about USF and become the College of Education’s first dean?
JB: Dr. Allen knew me at Florida Southern College, where I had been for many years. He had visited there many times because he had problems at the University of Florida between the College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts. We were getting along pretty well at Florida Southern College, so he visited often and knew me well as I served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. He offered me the job as Dean of the College of Education at USF one year before it opened. We had our offices in a building that was a former funeral home on Plant Avenue, right next to the bridge that goes over to Tampa General Hospital.
LB: I have a photograph of that building.
JB: The librarian was there and the deans were there, too, in 1959. We all worked together to develop our curricula. I was the dean of the College of Education and tried to give our curriculum a liberal arts orientation. I also started interviewing people for faculty positions. People from all over the United States started applying. Anyone with a master’s degree could apply, but we hired faculty with doctorate degrees. We didn’t have much space in the building, but we had a good time together. I had an office that was one desk and I shared the office with another dean. Elliott Hardaway, the librarian, was there with us, and he kept talking about how the library should be the center of the University.
The land for the University was donated to Hillsborough County to be used for the campus. The land was the northern part of an air field which was previously used to train pilots for World War II. The trees were cut down for the air field. After the war, orange trees were planted, but a freeze killed them.
Dr. Allen decided on the name the University of South Florida. It was his idea. The name upset a lot of people. LeRoy Collins was the governor of Florida. He was the best governor we have had since I’ve been here. He was really a good governor who was voted best governor of the century. Governor Collins didn’t want to use the name University of South Florida. Not for the reason that it wasn’t in the southern part of Florida, but because he didn’t want it to have a regional name. He wanted it to be named the University of Florida at Tampa and others to be the University of Florida at Jacksonville, etc. The Tampa Daily Times suggested the name University of South Florida at Temple Terrace. John Allen talked him out of the University of Florida at Tampa, so then the governor went back to University of South Florida not being in southern Florida. President Allen then said, “You’re Episcopalian and the Southern Episcopal Diocese extends from Ocala all the way to south Florida, and Tampa is much further south than Ocala.” USF was the first new university in Florida. Boca Raton was supposed to be the first new university, but the people in Boca Raton weren’t ready so we became the first new university. So, we got that settled. Then they discovered that there were the sink holes in the land, and they had to put in tons of sand to fill them up.
Dr. Allen and I went out to Mulberry to speak to the Lions Clubs. President Allen bragged about the University and how great it was going to be, and when he finished, the president of the Lions Club said, “What about that Busch Gardens, where all of your students will go to get drunk?” That got in the newspaper and caused uproar. Busch Gardens didn’t have any animals in those days, only birds and beer. They didn’t cage the birds, and the birds came to the campus. So we had to catch the birds and return them to Busch Gardens. They then decided that it would be better to cage them.
We had more students in the College of Education than all the other colleges combined. We also had the first university graduates. Two ladies came to Dr. Allen. They had completed two years of college and insisted that they wanted to enroll in the teacher education program. We weren’t ready for them yet, but Dr. Allen thought it would be good publicity. We had to prepare courses and assign some faculty early for them so they could complete their degree early. In 1960, we were starting with freshmen. Every year, Dr. Allen would take more students than we were paid for by the state of Florida. We were hiring about 35 faculty members each year, and I tried to get him to slow down. It was a struggle because he wanted to rival the University of Florida. He put it on us and we had to carry the burden. We always accepted more students than we were paid for and had to continuously hire more faculty.
LB: In 1960, you hired some of your first faculty members, Dr. Bill Bott, Dr. Tom Stovall, and Dr. Harris Dean. How did that come about?
JB: They all applied. Bill Bott from Florida Southern College; Tom Stovall was at the University of Minnesota, but was from Nashville and wanted to move south; and Harris Dean, was at Florida State University as a professor of education. At that time Dr. Dean was in charge of secondary education programs for the Southern Association for the Accreditation of Schools and Colleges. Dr. Allen knew about him and was anxious to have him here to help with our accreditation.
LB: Was Dr. Bott the first person that you hired?