Teaching expansion

What began as a small teachers college on an isolated hilltop in Cape Girardeau has become a sprawling university of academic buildings, residence halls and large parking lots.

And Southeast Missouri State University is looking to expand even more, with construction expected to start this spring on developing a former Catholic seminary overlooking the Mississippi River into a second campus -- this one a school for the visual and performing arts.

It's hard to imagine the Cape Girardeau landscape without the university. But 132 years ago, Cape Girardeau nearly lost out to Arcadia in its bid to land what was then called the Third District Normal School.

Today, Arcadia is a small town of about 600 people in Iron County. But in 1873 it was a formidable rival as a possible site for the college, according to local historians.

Back then, cities had to bid to land such an institution, which communities were expected to build and operate. The process was designed to ensure adequate funding. The college didn't receive any significant state funding until after the turn of the century.

'A bidding contest'

"It was really a bidding contest," said Arthur Mattingly, a retired history professor from Southeast. "It could have gone anywhere."

Cape Girardeau County's efforts to secure the school were plagued by township disagreements over where to locate it. The cities of Cape Girardeau and Jackson quarreled because both wanted the college.

But not everyone did. Some worried that the college would have too much control over local school districts and increase the cost of employing teachers.

In the end, Cape Girardeau civic leaders bought some $50,000 in bonds, and Cape Girardeau had its college.

The school's regents chose a 10.5-acre site, once home of a Civil War fort, as the location for the new college. Today, the main campus covers 328 acres, extending north from Broadway to Bertling Street and from Henderson Avenue to Sprigg Street.

The school's first president -- presidents used to be known as principals -- was Lucius H. Cheney, whose salary was $2,000. The university's oldest dormitory, a white limestone building completed in 1939, is named for him.

Classes were held the first year and most of the second year on the upper floor of the Lorimier Public School. Cheney and his wife, Frances, were the entire faculty during the school's first year of operation.

Fifty-seven students were enrolled the first year: 28 women and 29 men. The second year, attendance rose to 164.

Last fall, more than 9,600 students were enrolled in classes at the university. It has 1,144 regular employees, including 441 faculty members.

In the institution's early years, students were charged a fee of $3 per term. The school year consisted of 40 weeks divided into four terms. By 1885, the cost per term had climbed to $35, which included room and board, washing, books and the incidental fee.

Today, tuition and room and board charges amount to about $9,700 a year for in-state undergraduates.

The original curriculum was divided into elementary and advanced programs. Advanced students had to take Latin or German each term. There were also courses on principles of hygiene, penmanship and bookkeeping.

Today, in addition to basic English, math and science courses, the university offers a wide range of other classes that the school's founders never could have imagined. They include courses on the art of film and living in a global society.

The first campus building opened in 1875 on a site once used for a brewery. "Some people said it was too far from town," Nickell said.

Twain's description

Mark Twain penned the most famous description of the Normal School. "There was another college high up on an airy summit -- a bright new edifice, picturesquely and peculiarly towered and pinnacled -- a sort of gigantic casters, with the cruets all complete," he wrote.

A fire in April 1902 destroyed the turreted, brick school and forever changed the look of the hilltop campus. The university's landmark building, the domed Academic Hall, was born out of the disaster.

Without the blaze, the university would have become a "red-brick campus" patterned after East Coast schools, said Dr. Frank Nickell, director of the Center for Regional History at Southeast.

The fire ruined that blueprint. Southeast ended up with the limestone Academic Hall, setting the stage for today's limestone and tan brick campus.

At the time of the fire, the college had 363 students, most of them women who were being trained as teachers.

"This was known as the old maids school," said Nickell, pointing out that women in those days had to quit teaching once they married.

Following the blaze, classes were shifted to the Common Pleas Courthouse, churches and other buildings in town. By 1903, the school had opened a science building and an art building.

Academic Hall was constructed in 1904 and 1905 with $200,000 in state funding. The building was opened to the public on Dec. 2, 1905. It was reported that at least 5,000 people attended the opening.

At the time, it was one of the biggest public works projects in the state.

Early on, students walked or rode horses to campus. "There were hitching rails," Nickell said. "There was a little stable right out in front of Academic Hall on the lawn."

The college at first didn't have dormitories. Students boarded with families in Cape Girardeau. "There were rooming houses all around," Nickell said.

In the 20th century, cars became the mode of transportation and parking lots mushroomed.

But in the 1950s and 1960s, there still were few parking lots on campus. People parked on the streets.

Baseball and football were popular sports at the college at the turn of the century. The baseball team played the faculty and other Normal schools in the state. The football team played teams from high schools and other colleges.

Football games were played at the fairgrounds, what is now Capaha Park. Basketball games in the early 1900s were played in a gymnasium in Academic Hall.

Rules are rules

Early on in the school's history, students labored under some strict rules.

"The frequent visiting of each other's rooms, lounging about town during study hours and all unnecessary gallantry are prohibited," a school catalog stated in the late 1800s.

Students were prohibited form using profane or "quarrelsome language." They were barred from visiting saloons or billiard rooms and were forbidden to drink alcoholic beverages unless prescribed as medicine by a doctor.

In the 1920s, students were expected to attend church, and couples were to have chaperons when they went to the movies. At one time, students couldn't even dance on campus. University president Joseph Serena lifted the ban on dancing in 1932.

"It was a longstanding tradition in the 1920s and 1930s that students could not talk in the halls of Academic Hall outside the classrooms," Nickell said.

Jane Stacy, director of alumni services and development at Southeast, was a student at the school in the 1950s and lived in campus housing. "I think we had to be in by 10:30 every night. Women could not wear pants anywhere," she recalled.

Even in the 1960s, students and faculty were expected to follow a dress code.

"Women, even faculty wives, had to dress appropriately," Nickell said. "They could not go into Academic Hall bare-legged."

In the 1960s, then-university president Mark Scully issued a ban on students kissing on campus. The edict received mention in Reader's Digest, Nickell said. But he said the edict was impossible to enforce.

"It was source of amusement on the part of a lot of people," Nickell said.

Stacy, who has served as alumni director for 32 years, said the university is far different today than when she was a student.

"People have come and gone. Programs have come and gone," she said. "Nothing has stayed the same, except Academic Hall is in the same place."

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123

SOUTHEAST THROUGH THE YEARS

* March 1873: Gov. Silas Woodson signs a bill establishing the Third District Normal School for Southeast Missouri.

* October 1873: Regents by a 4-3 vote choose Cape Girardeau over Arcadia as location for the college.

* December 1873: Regents choose Cape Girardeau hilltop as site for the college, but classes originally are held in a public school in the city. Lucius Cheney hired as first president.

* 1875: The old Normal School building is constructed.

* 1876: Alfred Kirk hired as school president.

* 1877: Charles Dutcher named school president.

* 1880: Richard Norton becomes president.

* 1893: Willard Vandiver hired as school president.

* 1897: John McGhee hired as president.

* 1899: Washington Dearmont becomes president.

* 1902: Normal building destroyed by fire.

* 1905: Academic Hall opened.

* 1919: School renamed the Southeast Missouri State Teachers College.

* 1921: Joseph Serena named president.

* 1933: Walter Parker hired as university president.

* 1945: College renamed Southeast Missouri State College.

* 1954: School admitted its first black student.

* 1956: Mark Scully named president.

* 1972: School becomes Southeast Missouri State University.

* 1975: Robert Leestamper hired as university president.

* 1979: Bill Stacy becomes president.

* 1989: Robert Foster named president.

* 1990: Kala Stroup hired as president.

* 1995: Bill Atchley becomes president.

* 1996: Dale Nitzschke named president.

* 1998: Southeast buys former Catholic seminary and announces plans to turn it into a River Campus school for the visual and performing arts.

* 1999: Ken Dobbins named president.

* 2004: Regents scrap the school's traditional Indian nicknames and adopt a new name, Redhawks, and a new mascot.

* 2005: Southeast prepares to start construction of its new River Campus.