Stories Archives

A BIT OF HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE

By Louis Thompson

I entered Iowa State University in the fall of 1946 as a teaching assistant in Soils.  I became an assistant professor in the spring quarter of 1947 and earned my M.S. degree in the summer of 1947.  In 1948, I was offered a job as sales manager for a large feed company in Minnesota.  The manager of the company had been a company commander in a battalion that I commanded during World War II.  The salary was more than twice what I was earning at Iowa State, so I told Dr. Pierre, head of agronomy, that I was leaving.  Dean H.H. Kildee asked that I see him before signing my resignation.  He talked to me for a half hour about a fabulous job in industry that he turned down to stay in Iowa State.  Just as I was leaving, he made a statement that caused me stay at Iowa State.  He said, “If you will stay in academic work, some day you will occupy an office like this one.”  Ten years later I moved to that office, and I occupied that office for 25 years.  It is the office now occupied by Dean David Topel.*

In the spring of 1949 I was offered a position as associate professor of agronomy at North Carolina State University where Dr. James H. Hilton was dean of agriculture.  Dean Kildee called President Charles Friley and received approval to offer me the same salary offered by North Carolina State and a promotion to full professor the day I received my Ph.D.  Dr. Friley confirmed the offer by letter to Dean Kildee.  So, again Dean Kildee caused me to remain at Iowa State.

Dean Floyd Andre succeeded Dean Kildee in July, 1949.  The assistant dean, Milton Holcomb, accepted a job with a farm management firm, and left in the fall of 1949.  The new farm operation curriculum was administered in the dean’s office so Dean Andre started looking for a head of farm operation.  Dr. W.H. Pierre, Dr. Bill Murray and Professor Phin Shearer were asked to select some one to take charge of the program.  They selected me without interviewing me.  Dean Andre called me to his office.  With him was V.B. Hamilton who was a member of the Board of Regents.  Dean Andre told me that I had been selected for the job.  I told him that I preferred to teach and finish my textbook.  He told me to think it over.  A little later, Dr. George Browning, Associate Director of the Experiment Station, came to my office with a very influential message.  He said “If you are going to stay on the team you have to play where the coach puts you.”  The next day Dean Andre called me to his office.  I told him that I would take the job if I could teach part time, finish my book, and finish my degree first.  He said that he could hold the job open no longer than the end of the winter quarter.  He said I could be Assistant Dean or Professor in charge of farm operation.  I preferred a title that would be appeal to the students.  I had one course to take in the winter quarter under Dr. Sidney Fox in organic chemistry.  Dr. Fox volunteered to remove the course from my requirement because I had just completed one of his courses with a grade of A.  That left me with finishing my research and writing a thesis in just three months.  When I told my major professor, Dr. Charles Black what I wanted to do he said, “you can try it but you might end up in the nut house”.  With the help of Dr. Black I received my Ph.D. at the end of the winter quarter of 1950.

Right after I received my Ph.D. President Friley called me to his office.  He said, “Louie, I don’t want those students in farm operation to develop an academic bellyache.  Help them develop programs that will help them in their career goals”.  Then he told me that he had arranged with Dr. R.M. Hughes, retired president of Iowa State, to tutor me in college administration.  I was to meet with Dr. Hughes one hour each week during the spring quarter.  Each time I reported to “class” with Dr. Hughes, he had an outline for the day written on a large sheet of paper on an easel.  He really lectured for an hour.  It was a great course and was very helpful in my career as a college administrator.  I think that Dr. Friley had more ambition for me than I had for myself.  Another student in whom he took great interest (while he was at Texas A&M) was Dr. Bill Morgan, who became president of Colorado State University.  But I never wanted a job that would keep me apart from undergraduate students, especially freshmen.  As soon as I reported for duty as professor in charge of farm operation, Dean Andre took me to the floor above his office to show me three rooms that would be used for farm operation, so that the program would no longer be considered part of the dean’s office.  I was to be in his budget full time, but I could teach part time in agronomy.  He considered me as assistant dean even though I did not want to carry that title.  I was given a full time secretary and could hire one man to help with the advising of about 300 majors in farm operation.  There were about 200 freshmen and sophomores who were being advised by the placement officer in Curtiss Hall, but he would not permit them to come to his office.  He would meet with them for two hours each week in Room 11 Beardshear Hall.  This was unsatisfactory with me, so I relieved him of advising and hired ten seniors in farm operation to work four hours each week so that I had a senior in the office eight hours each day, and four hours on Saturday morning to counsel with the freshmen and sophomores as they reclassified for the summer or the fall quarter.  I took the job of counseling the juniors and seniors, and there were about 100 of them.  I didn’t teach that quarter so I was a full time adviser to my student.  The curriculum for the first two years was outlined in the catalog, but a special curriculum for the last two years had to be developed for each student in his or her junior year, if a degree was to be earned.

I finished my textbook in the spring of 1950 and delivered it to W. C. Brown for publishing under the title of Soils and Soil Fertility.  It was Mr. Brown’s first book with a hard cover.  I kept the copyright because I wanted to have it published by a major publisher.  It was a very attractive book.  The art work was superb.  There was a picture, or graph, or a table on every page.  In less than a year I received a telegram from Hugh Hansfield, Editor of McGraw-Hill, saying “Am eager to publish your book.  Letter follows”.  The book was published with no changes by McGraw-Hill in 1952.

Dr. W.G. (Bill) Murray who was head of economics had started the Ag 450 Farm in 1941.  It was to be a student managed farm to give seniors experience in making management decisions.  Mr. Holcomb had been hired to be the instructor for Ag 450.  After Mr. Holcomb left, a graduate student in education was the instructor.  He left at the end of the spring quarter, 1950, so the farm was turned over to me.  I was the instructor in the summer of 1950.  The farm (187 acres) was located three miles south of the campus.  It was a run-down farm bought at a low price with the Catt Estate funds and leased for Ag 450.  The herdsman on the farm was an elderly man who lived on the farm with his wife in a dilapidated house.  His principal job was to look after the hogs, a large and profitable operation.  He had a team of horses for hauling shelled corn to the hog feeders in the meadow.  The crops of corn, oats and hay were planted and harvested by farm service.  I let the students go home for the Forth of July weekend, and I agreed to look after the farm.  On the afternoon of the third, I stopped by the farm and Roy Picht was in a hog lot distributing some feed from a bucket.  I called to him and climbed over the fence to talk to him.  Just as he got close enough to talk to me, he fainted and fell into my arms.  I carried him into the house and called a doctor.  The doctor said it was heat exhaustion and that he just needed rest.  The net day I was up early to do the chores.  Fortunately, the students had just sold the dairy cows, but all the hog feeders in the meadow were empty.  I haressed the team and shoveled about 50 bushels of shelled corn into the wagon, then shoveled the corn into the feeders.  That afternoon Roy walked to the meadow where I was working.  As we sat in the shade of the wagon I told Roy that this kind of work was too much for him.  He agreed and said that he wished he could find another job.  I found him a job as a custodian in the College of Veterinary Medicine, which he held until he retired.  The students wanted to make the Ag 450 farm a hog and cattle feeding operation, so I took them to Webster City to buy feeder cattle.  We selected a pen of Hereford steers weighing less than 600 pounds and bought them at the auction.  That was a profitable enterprise.  I would have enjoyed teaching Ag 450, but I prevailed on Jim Wallace and Kenneth Oakleaf of the Iowa State Farm Foundation to look after the farm until I could hire an assistant.  I hired Bob Skinner, a vocational agriculture teacher in Sac City, Iowa, but he couldn’t report for duty until February 1951.  Bob taught Ag 450 and helped me with advising students until he earned his masters degree in animal science, then he started a new career.

In the early summer of 1954, I told Dean Andre that I was not earning my salt and needed more to do.  I asked for permission to travel out in the state and meet my incoming freshmen on their home farms and meet their parents.  That was a good move because I could identify the students who would most likely become farmers, and I helped others prepare for graduate school, teaching vocational agriculture, or for a career in agricultural business.  By 1954 a third of the freshmen in the College of Agriculture were enrolled in farm operation.  But that quickly changed when agricultural economics was restructured to become agriculture business.  Within just a few years, the enrollment in agricultural business was the largest in the College of Agriculture.

While I was still in charge of farm operation, the Ag 450 account had a balance of more than $14,000, which was enough to build a new house.  The herdsman was living in a mobile home.  I went to Mr. Boyne Platt, the business manager of Iowa State College, and asked for permission to build the new house.  He wanted to pay off the debt to the Catt estate with that money and agreed to move a house from the campus to the farm.  The house had been occupied by the dean of engineering and was located across from The Knoll.  That was a good deal because we needed a classroom at the farm so the basement was used for that purpose.  There was no longer a lease to be paid each year.

In the summer of 1955, I was offered the position of head of agronomy at Oklahoma State University.  I decided to accept the offer, which was considerably more than I was earning.  When I informed Dean Andre that I was leaving, he asked that I meet with Dr. James Jensen, the provost, and him on the following Saturday morning.  Dr. Jensen told me tht if I would stay at Iowa State I would be the next associate dean of agriculture.  When Dr. Roy Kottman accepted a deanship at West Virginia I was informed by Dean Andre that I would become the associate dean on July 1, 1958.

After Dr. Lee Kolmer became dean of agriculture in 1973, my title was changed to associate dean of academic programs.  I was responsible for resident teaching, which included managing the budget for resident teaching in agriculture.  I was the academic dean for undergraduate students, but the dean of the graduate college was the academic dean for graduate students, (although he had no budget responsibilities for graduate teaching).  I was called Dean Thompson by Dean Kolmer and this became my regular title in the College of Agriculture.

*Essay prepared in 1996