The accreditation crisis of 1941–42 had been a serious threat to the integrity of William and Mary as an educational institution. A painful reminder of the fact that there were high costs associated with the extension of the College’s activities well beyond Williamsburg, it provided yet another example of the disagreements about the College’s proper identity. Many faculty and alumni certainly rejected former President Chandler’s ideas about William and Mary’s mission and would have been happy to abandon all responsibilities for the burdensome divisions in Richmond and Norfolk. But no resolution of this issue was then possible, for by 1943 other problems, resulting from the entry of the United States into World War II, became of much greater immediate concern. Indeed, for a while William and Mary, like many other educational institutions, was hard-pressed to find enough students just to keep its doors open. Responding to such wartime challenges soon became the first priority of the new president, John E. Pomfret.

Enter Dr. Pomfret

When President Bryan announced his resignation on April 11, 1942, it was with the understanding that he would retire when his successor had been found, but no later than January 1, 1943. For the third time in the twentieth century, the Board of Visitors was faced with the responsibility of choosing a new president After accepting Bryan’s resignation “with very deep regret,” the Board began the process by instructing Rector Bohannan to appoint a search committee of three members of the Board, with himself as an additional ex officio member. The committee was to report a nomination to the Board by the fall meeting.^[1] As it turned out, the Board was able to reach a decision by mid-August Nevertheless, the process revealed that important divisions still existed among the Visitors and others about William and Mary’s identity and mission. Although the selection process was far more open and broadly based than it had been in the past, the issues were similar to those that arose in 1934, and to a lesser degree in 1919.

Bohannan named Channing M. Hall of Williamsburg, Francis Pickens Miller of Fairfax, and George S. Shackelford, Jr., of Roanoke as the members of the search committee. They began by asking a number of alumni for their suggestions about the qualifications desirable in a president and for the names of specific individuals. By the end of May they had selected six primary candidates from a list of more than thirty.^[2] Many alumni, as well as the members of the faculty, were eager to contribute to the selection process. The Society of the Alumni called for an “extensive survey,” one that “extended to the entire nation,” in order to “obtain a president with a national reputation as an educator, a scholar and an administrator.”^[3] On May 28 the faculty requested the Board to allow “a representative committee of the Faculty” to advise the search committee. Hall, the spokesman for that committee, readily agreed to such an arrangement. The faculty selected a committee of twenty-two, composed of the heads of all departments, the deans of men and women, and the librarian. Understandably, Hall found this much too large and suggested instead a smaller group of two or three people. The faculty then chose Richard L. Morton from history, as chairman, Roscoe Conkling Young from physics, and Dean J. Wilfred Lambert for this select committee. It was the first time in William and Mary’s history that the faculty were involved in selecting a new president.^[4] Subsequently, the faculty committee endorsed a statement pertaining to the qualifications for a president that the alumni association had previously adopted. It specifically stated that the most important qualification was that the president should “be a scholar in some academic field with teaching experience.” In addition, the faculty committee believed that he should be, among other things, “a man who would be a leader rather than a dictator,” and that he should “recognize that the College of William and Mary is a liberal arts college.”^[5]

The Board’s committee agreed that there should be a national search. Significantly, the final six candidates were all highly regarded scholars or academic administrators: Dean Robert D. Calkins of Columbia University (an alumnus), Robert K. Gooch of the University of Virginia, Alexander Guerry of the University of the South, Dumas Malone of Harvard University, and Chancellor Oliver C. Carmichael and Dean John E. Pomfret of Vanderbilt University. Over a period of several weeks in late June and July, the committee conferred with each of the candidates and solicited the opinions of numerous academicians about their qualifications. Before long the committee began to conclude that Pomfret was the best person for the job.^[6]

Born in Philadelphia on September 21, 1898, Pomfret had earned his bachelor of arts, master of arts, and doctor of philosophy degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. A specialist in the colonial period of American history, he had published a number of well-regarded books and articles. From 1925 through 1937, he taught history at Princeton University, where he rose from instructor to associate professor. He had been active in a number of professional organizations, notably the Social Science Research Council, and had been an assistant dean at Princeton. Since 1937 he had enjoyed a successful career as dean of the Senior College and Graduate School of Vanderbilt University. His colleagues and superiors uniformly described Pomfret as a likable person, an excellent scholar, and a successful administrator.^[7]

Pomfret’s election was by no means assured, however, despite the fact that he appeared to possess the precise qualities desired by the William and Mary faculty, and that he had become the preferred choice of the search committee. Others, including some members of the Board of Visitors, disagreed with the priorities of the search committee and the faculty and turned instead to a very different sort of person, Morgan L. Combs, the president of Mary Washington College. Whatever his merits, Combs, who was not on the search committee’s list, certainly did not meet the criteria proposed by the alumni association or the faculty. Born in 1892, Combs was a native Virginian and a graduate of the University of Richmond. He had earned a master of arts degree at the University of Chicago, and master of Education and doctor of Education degrees at Harvard. His whole career had been in education—as a teacher, a superintendent of schools, the state supervisor of elementary education, a professor of Education, and the state director of educational research and surveys—before assuming the presidency of Mary Washington in 1929.^[8] Like Sidney B. Hall in 1934, Combs was the favorite of those who would emphasize William and Mary as a teacher-training institution at the expense of liberal arts and higher academic standards. Moreover, Combs was the nephew of Senator Harry F. Byrd’s chief political lieutenant, Everett R. ”Ebbie” Combs.^[9] This meant that the pro-Combs movement, which favored a particular, and contested, view of the nature and role of William and Mary, appeared to have the backing of the state’s powerful political leadership.

Although Combs’s supporters denied that any such political maneuvers were afoot, his opponents, with some reason, believed otherwise.^[10] Before long it was evident that a pro-Combs campaign of considerable scope was under way. Many members of the General Assembly sent letters on his behalf to the Board of Visitors. So did a large number of school superintendents from around the state.^[11] Thus, much of both the political and the educational establishment in Virginia appeared to be behind Combs’s candidacy. One of the leaders of the pro-Combs movement was a William and Mary alumnus, H. Lester Hooker, the influential chairman of the State Corporation Commission. The Board of Visitors was split over the Combs candidacy. Oscar L. Shewmake, the leader of the pro-Combs faction, was eventually joined by Board members Claude C. Coleman, A Herbert Foreman, Otto Lowe, and Robert C. Vaden, who was also a state senator. By mid-July one well-informed Combs opponent, Charles P. McCurdy, Jr. (the executive secretary of the Society of the Alumni, who was then on leave serving in the navy in Washington, D.C.) viewed the situation as “extremely dangerous.” If Combs were elected, said McCurdy, “the future of William and Mary which I have envisioned will never come.” Similarly, Vernon Geddy warned Shewmake that Combs’s election “would be a most tragic mistake.”^[12]

Given the support for Combs, the search committee decided to withhold a recommendation in favor of Pomfret until it had an opportunity to confer with Combs. On August 3 three members of the committee met with him for several hours in Fredericksburg.^[13] They came away wholly unconvinced that he was the person for William and Mary. Combs pointed out to them that during his administration many new buildings had been constructed at Mary Washington College. But the committee realized that this had not been a unique achievement, and that in any event William and Mary’s big need at that time was not for more buildings. There were several reasons why the committee could not recommend Combs. With one or more possible exceptions, he did not have the support “of the heads of important institutions of learning in Virginia”; his experience as head of a women’s college was not likely to be helpful in attracting men to William and Mary; his experience had been wholly in public school work and teacher training, whereas the committee saw William and Mary’s future in the liberal arts; he was “regarded as being dictatorial”; he was opposed by “a very large number of alumni” and “the great majority of the faculty” at William and Mary; and he lacked the scholarship and college teaching experience that were desirable. The committee concluded that “there is no indication that Dr. Combs can provide a leadership [sic] in the tradition of William and Mary.”^[14]

Unlike Combs, Pomfret was strongly recommended by many academic administrators and scholars, including Oliver C. Carmichael, chancellor of Vanderbilt University, and the noted historians Joseph R. Strayer, E. Harris Harbison, and Thomas J. Wertenbaker of Princeton University.^[15] After an interview with Pomfret in New York on August 2, the search committee invited him to come to Williamsburg to confer with the faculty advisory committee. During a visit on August 6 he made a very favorable impression on the members of the faculty committee. He was “an exceedingly good choice,” they concluded, and they praised the Board committee for conducting its search “with infinite pains and excellent judgment.” They also stated that “the great majority of the Faculty are strongly opposed to the election of Dr. Morgan L. Combs,” and that were he to be selected “the morale of the College would be greatly impaired.”^[16]

At a meeting of the Board on August 17, the four-member search committee unanimously recommended the election of Pomfret.^[17] One other member of the Board, Lulu Metz, was also known to support Pomfret. But the other five Board members (Shewmake, Coleman, Foreman, Lowe, and Vaden) favored Combs. At the start of the meeting, before the committee report had actually been presented, Shewmake introduced a resolution to limit the presidency to a six-year, renewable term. This was an idea that he had suggested some months earlier on the grounds that he knew no one to whom he would entrust the College for life. That such a limitation would have seriously weakened, and probably politicized, the presidency was a concern he did not address publicly. Shewmake’s resolution lost by a vote of five to five, with the Board divided exactly between those who favored Pomfret and those who favored Combs.^[18] This split continued over into “the rather animated discussion” of Pomfret and could not be resolved. The Board, evenly divided, was unable to come to a decision on the presidency. The deadlock was finally broken after Rector Bohannan ruled that the ex officio member of the Board, Dabney S. Lancaster, the state superintendent of public instruction, was eligible to vote for the election of a president. Despite his association with the education establishment, and for reasons that have never been made clear, Lancaster sided with the members of the search committee. This made it possible to elect Pomfret as president of William and Mary by a vote of six to five. The Board then adopted a pro forma resolution to make the election unanimous. Only the latter vote was made public, so neither Pomfret nor the faculty was then aware of just how badly divided the Board had been.^[19]

The process by which the new president was chosen in 1942 was probably more open than at any time in William and Mary’s history. There had certainly never been such a willingness to consider faculty opinion. The faculty, in turn, could take pleasure in the defeat of Combs, and what he apparently stood for, and in the election of a person of recognized scholarly distinction. But as it turned out, it was a victory steeped in irony. The serious split that developed between the supporters of Pomfret and Combs left scars. Some Board members on the losing side felt deeply aggrieved by the way the search committee had conducted its work and were never fully reconciled to the result.^[20] This undoubtedly affected their attitude towards Pomfret, even though he had not been personally involved in the controversy and should certainly not have been held responsible for it. Of course, Pomfret knew that there had been strong support for Combs, but he was not then aware of how deep and lasting the dispute had become. The bitter fight meant that, through no fault of his own, he had to assume office without the full and unequivocal support of the Board of Visitors. Some of his later difficulties must be viewed in that light. Had he known at the time that the Board had been split six to five over his candidacy, it is quite possible that he would not have accepted the presidency.^[21] At the campus in Williamsburg, however, there was no outward evidence of these troubles. After discussions among Bryan, Pomfret, and the Board, September 15 was set as the effective date of Bryan’s resignation and the beginning of Pomfret’s term as president of William and Mary. Two days later he was “enthusiastically received” at the opening meeting of the faculty.^[22]

When he accepted the presidency, Pomfret was fully aware of the problems that had led to the College’s suspension by the AAU. It was his first big challenge, and until the College was restored to the AAU’s approved list in December 1942, he had to devote most of his time to those issues. This work was a necessary prerequisite for the pursuit of his main objective at William and Mary: “to make William and Mary a first-rate undergraduate institution of national reputation.” To a considerable extent his objectives would continue the work begun by Bryan. His interest was not in building and physical expansion; rather it was in improving the quality of the faculty and student body. He hoped that non-liberal arts programs, such as those in library science, home economics, and secretarial science, could be reduced or abolished, and that the College could eventually be freed of the Norfolk and Richmond Divisions, which had been the source of so much pain for William and Mary.^[23] Pomfret’s inauguration ceremonies were held on Charter Day, February 8, 1943, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the College. That occasion was also marked by the formal investiture of John Stewart Bryan as chancellor. The guest speakers, President James B. Conant of Harvard and Chancellor Oliver C. Carmichael of Vanderbilt, appropriately represented the two academic institutions that in different ways had had such an impact on recent developments at William and Mary. Pomfret’s remarks were not at all programmatic. Instead, in keeping with his scholarly interests, they focused entirely on Thomas Jefferson’s contributions to education. There was little else to mark the occasion. Because of the war, the ceremony was cut back to the barest minimum, unlike the elaborate occasions attending the inaugurations of Presidents Chandler and Bryan. In some ways, however, it seemed peculiarly appropriate to Pomfret’ s conservative tastes.^[24]

Adjusting to War

During his first two or three years, Pomfret concentrated mainly on the adjustments that William and Mary had to make to the demands of the war. The process had begun in earnest only during Bryan’s last year. For more than two years after the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939, the College had managed to continue its usual activities, relatively unaffected by events beyond the campus. Even the passage of the Selective Service Act in September 1940 had little immediate impact on enrollments and College activities, as it initially applied to men ages twenty-one to thirty-six and it mandated the deferment of college students upon their request until the end of the 1940–41 academic year.^[25] Things changed rapidly after the American entry into the war in December 1941. Many students found it was no easy matter to concentrate on their academic work. Some withdrew and enlisted in one of the services, either out of a sense of patriotism or as a means of getting a more desirable assignment than would have resulted from the draft. Hoping to prevent too many such losses, Bryan directed a statement to students on December 15, 1941, in which he argued that the nation needed educated men and women, and that students who continued in college and worked hard at their studies were also serving their country.^[26] But adjustments had to be made to the rapidly changing conditions. In February 1942 Dean Hoke attended a special meeting of the executive council of the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, which recommended that its members consider ways to accelerate the progress of their students by extending the periods of instruction and by making curriculum adjustments.^[27] In line with this approach, William and Mary then set up its courses on a three-term basis, so that a student could get a full semester’s work in the summer and graduate after three regular and two summer sessions.

Some of the other adjustments were programmatic. Reasoning that improved physical fitness was needed in order to meet the demands of the war effort, on January 26, 1942, the faculty mandated that all juniors and seniors would be required to take physical education, unless they could pass periodic fitness tests.^[28] At that same meeting, the faculty approved a number of special war courses in such subjects as camouflage, home nursing, internal combustion engines, introductory map reading and the interpretation of aerial photographs, military chemistry, and telegraphy. All but the latter were semester courses carrying two academic credits, although no student could take more than four credits a semester in such courses.^[29] However desirable such changes and additions might be, by the spring of 1942 Bryan was deeply concerned that the war was going to produce a disastrous decline in student enrollment. In a report to the Board of Visitors on May 30, he warned that they were “facing the most serious situation which has confronted this College since 1888, by reason of the steady drain on our student body.” Applications, by both men and women, were down. Unlike a number of colleges and universities, William and Mary had no Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) programs to help maintain the size of the student body.^[30]

In June 1942 William and Mary introduced an innovative program, the War Work Plan, that proved useful in attracting some men. The idea was conceived in the spring of 1942 by Sharvy G. Umbeck, then an assistant professor of sociology. Noting that there was a shortage of workers in the Newport News area, Umbeck proposed offering young men the opportunity to alternate three days of work with three days of study at William and Mary. Two students could be paired to cover one job. Both government and private employers in the area had expressed an interest in such a plan.^[31] Bryan and the Board of Visitors agreed that such a program was worth trying, and it commenced in June 1942 with over seventy-five students participating. Initially, Hibbert D. Corey, an associate professor of economics and business administration, was appointed director of the program, although Umbeck was subsequently given the job. Students lived in the College dormitories and were able to take from eight to eleven hours of course work. The plan had the obvious advantages of providing needed labor to aid the war effort, providing financial assistance to young men who might otherwise have been unable to go to college, and increasing the male enrollment at William and Mary.

By the fall of 1942, some 250 students were participating in the War Work Plan. Many worked at the Naval Mine Depot in Yorktown; others in such diverse places as the Williamsburg post office, Casey’s Department Store, the Virginia Electric Power Company, the Newsome and Aldrich Engineering Company, and others. There was no shortage of work opportunities. But it was not easy to handle both responsibilities, and keeping up the students’ morale and their academic performance became a serious concern. About 45 percent of the students failed one or more courses in the fall of 1942. In practice the plan provided only temporary help in recruiting male students. Participation in the War Work Plan did not entitle one to a draft deferment, and by the spring of 1943, the College had to rely largely on sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys to keep it going. But for a while it had performed an important service to both William and Mary and employers in the area.^[32] The various enlisted reserve programs also helped to keep up enrollments at William and Mary. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy and the Army Air Corps began an enlistment campaign on college campuses under which they offered young men the option of enlisting in the reserves, while continuing their education, or waiting to take their chances with the selective service. The program was not fully implemented until the spring of 1942, however, when the navy set up its V-1, V-5, and V-7 programs. These were followed by the establishment of the Army Enlisted Reserve Corps and comparable programs for the Marine Corps and Coast Guard.^[33] During the 1942–43 session, about 150 William and Mary students were enrolled in the army and the army air programs and about 250 in those of the navy and marines.^[34]

The new programs helped make it possible for William and Mary to begin the semester in September 1942 without the drastic decline in enrollments that Bryan had feared. Instead, the situation improved so much that enrollments were actually up more than one hundred over the previous year, and the College began the session with a larger student body than at any time since the early 1930s. Moreover, for the first time in years, there were more men than women.^[35] But this was only a temporary reprieve from the demands of war. By the end of the summer of 1942, the manpower needs of the army had already increased drastically. On September 8 Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson announced that students in the army reserve programs would be called to active duty if they had reached draft age, which was then twenty, by the end of the semester. On November 13, 1942, the age was lowered to eighteen.^[36] The result was that during the second semester of the 1942–43 session, the men students at William and Mary were steadily whittled away. By the end of February, all but twenty of the students in the army or army air reserve programs were gone, although those in the naval and marine reserves were not then called up. In June the size of the student body had dropped to a little over one thousand. By then there were far more women than men, who increasingly were limited to pre-draft age freshmen, those classified 4-F, or those who were granted deferments because they were in premed or other technical or scientific programs.^[37]

With the departure of so many students for service in the armed forces, the faculty at William and Mary felt compelled to make some changes in its course and degree regulations. On January 12, 1943, it ruled that students who were “inducted into war service during the semester before graduation who have completed substantially half of the work of the semester shall be granted full credit toward graduation.” Students who were not seniors in their last semester and who had completed “substantially half” of the semester’s work at the time they were inducted, would receive credit for one-half or more of their work. In addition, the faculty provided that students would be able to receive “college credit for certain aspects of war-time service and for courses taken under the auspices of the Army Institute,” provided they demonstrated “satisfactory accomplishment in fields of study acceptable to the College.” Finally, the faculty ruled that the usual residence requirements (a minimum of thirty semester credits and the last year had to be taken at the College in Williamsburg) would be waived for any student meeting the degree requirements through such war service.^[38] In March 1943 the faculty extended these same privileges to any student who left the College “to perform services contributing to the war effort.” By early May sixty-one students had departed for war service and had received credit under these regulations, including twenty-five seniors who would be granted their degrees in June.^[39]

Chaplains and Soldiers

The decline in enrollments in the spring of 1943 threatened William and Mary’s ability to continue in operation. Pomfret estimated that about twelve hundred students on campus were needed “in order to maintain the College.”^[40] By June 1943 there were just over one thousand. William and Mary was saved from disaster, however, by the Naval Training School (Chaplains) and the Army Specialized Training Program. Originally housed at the naval base in Norfolk, the chaplains’ school began in March 1942. Its purpose was to indoctrinate civilian clergymen who already held naval commissions, along with some enlisted chaplains’ assistants, in the ways of the United States Navy. This included physical training as well as classroom work. Before the first year was over, it was apparent that the school needed more space than was available at Norfolk. William and Mary was eager to put its empty dormitories and classrooms to use, for which, of course, it would be compensated, and the navy agreed to relocate its school in Williamsburg. The navy moved in on March 17, 1943, and the school was officially commissioned one week later in a brief but colorful ceremony in front of the Wren Building. Its offices and classrooms were located on the second floor of the Marshall-Wythe Building, while the personnel were housed in Old Dominion and Monroe Halls. A navy chaplain with the rank of captain was the commanding officer of the school, and the faculty was made up of chaplains who had already been in action.^[41] There were also a few officers who were not chaplains. One was Dean Lambert, who on July 2, 1943, was granted a commission in the navy and subsequently, assigned back to William and Mary as an officer in the school.^[42]

In the spring of 1943, William and Mary became host to some 250 members of the chaplains’ school. The course lasted eight weeks, with a new group beginning every two weeks. At the end of the course, each chaplain had to be passed by an examining board of three senior chaplains. Nearly all did, but some had to be sent back for further training, and a few others who could not adjust to the demands of the service were asked to resign their commissions. The school continued at William and Mary to the end of the war, with the last class, which began on September 9, 1945, graduating on November 2. The chaplains’ school was decommissioned on November 15, 1945. In all, the program graduated over 2,700 navy chaplains, most of them at William and Mary. On balance it was a useful service to both the country and the College.^[43]

The Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) and the Navy College Training Program (V-12) grew out the need of the rapidly expanding armed services for high-grade technicians and specialists. By the fall of 1942, the army and the navy began to realize that without some systematic training program the available supply of such personnel would soon be exhausted. On December 12, 1942, the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy issued a joint statement describing a plan to utilize college facilities to train selected members of the armed forces “in curricula prescribed by the Services.” The ASTP started at a few institutions in March 1943, but it was not in large-scale operation until June. The V-12 program began on July 1, 1943. By the fall of 1943, there were ASTP units at 209 colleges with a total enrollment of over 130,000 and V-12 programs at 132 colleges with a total enrollment of some 78,000.^[44]

Early in August 1943, a unit of the ASTP, the 3321st, arrived at William and Mary. (Unlike the University of Richmond and the University of Virginia, the College did not have a V-12 program.) Participants in the ASTP were soldiers on active duty who had at least completed their basic training. Eligibility requirements for admission to the program included a minimum score of 115 on the Army General Classification Test, a high school education (if under twenty-two years of age), or one year of college (if twenty-two or older), with a substantial background in foreign languages or physics, mathematics or biology. The basic ASTP course called for a twelve-week term of study, with a curriculum prescribed by the army that emphasized engineering, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and foreign languages. Except in military drill, the host institution was responsible for providing the instruction. The prescribed training program was heavy, with twenty-four hours of class and laboratory work, twenty-four hours of required study, six hours of physical education, and five hours of military drill each week.^[45]

At William and Mary the soldiers of the 3321st Army Specialized Training Unit (ASTU) were housed in Blow Gymnasium, Brown, and Tyler. The first twelve-week cycle began on August 9 with an enrollment of 496. A second began on November 8 with 461 participants, and a third on February 7, 1944, with 275. Courses of from two to five hours credit were offered in chemistry, engineering drawing, English, geography, American history, mathematics, and physics. To the extent possible these were taught by regular faculty members, but there were not enough to handle the load, so some faculty wives were also brought in.^[46] An assignment to the ASTP was obviously a desirable alternative to combat duty, but the participants certainly did not enjoy the life of a typical civilian college student. To a degree the campus took on the air of a military camp, as the uniformed soldiers marched to and from class, the dining hall, and other places of duty. Reveille was at 6:00 a.m., with the first formation at 6:30. Each man took six academic subjects, in addition to physical education and military drill. Classes began at 8:00 a.m., with the last scheduled from 4:20 p.m. to 5:20 p.m. Except for one or two evenings a week, there was required study time in the evening, which was checked on by officers. The incentive to keep up with one’s work was high, however, for the penalty for not studying or for failure was removal from the unit with the likelihood of being reassigned to the infantry.^[47] Still, the schedule was arduous, so much so in fact that the faculty complained that the men were dull and sleepy in class. In October, Pomfret even wrote to Brigadier General Joe E. Dalton, the director of personnel of the Army Service Forces, suggesting that the program be lightened by allowing students to take either history or geography, but not to require both, and by reducing the amount of required physical education and military drill.^[48] The requirements were not changed.

William and Mary’s contract with the army called for the program to extend through June 30, 1944. This was not to be. In response to an acute shortage of manpower, General George C. Marshall issued a statement on February 10, 1944, explaining that the army could no longer justify holding some 140,000 men in the ASTP and that the maximum allowed would be cut back to 30,000. As a result the army abruptly terminated the unit at William and Mary on March 15, 1944, less than halfway through the third cycle.^[49] The departure of the ASTU in midsession was a financial blow to William and Mary. Fortunately, the College was able to minimize the loss by renting out Brown and Tyler Halls to servicemen and their families. In so doing it temporarily helped to relieve an acute housing shortage.^[50]

The army and the navy created the ASTP and the V-12 programs as a means of training vitally needed specialists. To a degree the programs served that purpose, although given the growing need for combat personnel, many of the men who studied in the program were later assigned to more conventional military tasks. This was certainly true for members of the 3321st ASTU. In fact, many subsequently saw action in Europe with the Ninety-fifth Infantry Division, part of General Patton’s Third Army; others fought elsewhere in Europe or the Philippines.^[51] But the programs served more than the individual servicemen and the army and the navy, for it was their presence that kept a number of American colleges going at a time of acute crisis. William and Mary was certainly such a beneficiary. Having an ASTU, as well as the naval chaplains’ school, insured its survival during the difficult days of World War II.^[52] For example, during the 1943–44 session, civilian enrollment at William and Mary dropped well below 1,000, but in October of that year there were nearly 1,600 students on campus counting the naval chaplains and the men in the ASTU. This was a considerably higher total than usual. By February 1944 the number had fallen to 1,255, and it dropped even lower with the departure of the ASTU.^[53] But the year had been saved. At the same time, the composition of the student body was significantly altered. Only 29 percent of the civilian students in 1943–44 were men, and 74 percent of the men were freshmen. The proportions during the next session, 1944–45, were similar, if slightly more extreme. Pomfret believed that the College’s work-study program, under which students were placed in part-time jobs with Colonial Williamsburg or elsewhere, was an important factor in bringing in men, although the program was hurt when the Williamsburg Inn, a source of many of the jobs, was closed in September 1944. One positive development was the entry of ten veterans under the G. I. Bill of Rights in the fall of 1944; they were the first of many more to come. Still, from 1943 through 1945, few men remained past their freshman or sophomore years. Only 15 senior men were officially enrolled in 1943–44, and this number fell to 6 in 1944–45. It was possible to have something close to an adequate number of civilian students during these years only by substantially increasing the number of women. In 1943–44 there were 245 freshman women enrolled; the next year their number was increased to 351. As a result, women comprised a record total of 73 percent of the student body during the 1944–45 session.^[54]

Fraternities at Bay

The loss of the men during the war years inevitably had an impact on many other aspects of college life, particularly on fraternities and intercollegiate athletics. Fraternities at William and Mary had been in trouble long before America’s entry into the war. In July 1941 a faculty committee, chaired by Harold L. Fowler, issued a damning report based on a study of fraternities and sororities since 1935. “Fraternities at William and Mary are in very bad shape,” it concluded. “They contribute to the life of the College little, if anything, that is worthwhile. In fact, in some respects, they may be regarded as a harmful influence.” Some were in financial difficulty, the report continued, due in part to the fact that there were too many fraternities for the number of eligible pledges. They were “not interested in scholastic achievements,” and the academic record of many of the fraternity men was very poor; nor did fraternities make constructive contributions to the social life of the campus.

Despite such scathing conclusions, the committee did not recommend the abolition of fraternities, reasoning, somewhat weakly, that the College would be hurt if such a regular part of American campus life were removed and, more convincingly, that their absence would hurt the effort to attract more men students. Instead, it recommended such reforms as more careful administrative oversight of fraternities, higher academic averages for initiation, a prohibition against any new fraternities, and the construction of a fraternity complex comparable to sorority court.^[55] The section of the committee’s report on sororities was brief and came to quite different conclusions. On the whole it found these to be in “sound condition” in regard to their finances, the academic record of their members, and their social contribution. It made only a few recommendations pertaining to sororities, although it did favor the establishment of administrative supervision similar to that recommended for the fraternities.^[56]

Responding to the committee’s report in October 1941, the administration announced a number of new policies regarding fraternities and sororities. John E. Hocutt, the assistant dean of men, was appointed to be the “fraternity officer” in the administration, with the responsibility of keeping the records of both fraternities and sororities. He was also made responsible for all policies regarding fraternities. At the same time, Marguerite Wynne-Roberts, the assistant dean of women, was named “sorority officer” in the administration, with similar authority over sororities. Faculty advisors were also to be appointed for the Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Council. Beginning with the 1942–43 session, the College was to set the dates and duration of the rushing period for both fraternities and sororities. The administration statement also noted, among other things, that the College was considering the establishment of a fraternity court.^[57]

Such modest reforms might have been useful, but in the opinion of Governor Colgate W. Darden, Jr ., they did not go far enough. In August 1942 Darden requested the Board of Visitors at William and Mary to have a special meeting for the discussion of fraternities. Pomfret, who was consulted, but who had not yet assumed office, professed to “have no strong feeling one way or the other about fraternities.” At some schools they were “very undemocratic,” he said, while at others they made “a positive contribution to the campus.”^[58] Darden doubted that the latter was the case, however. In a statement presented to the Board of Visitors on September 2, 1942, he indicated that he would recommend to the next General Assembly that fraternities and sororities be forbidden to maintain living quarters separate from the rest of the student population. Darden had read and approved of the criticisms of fraternities in the 1941 report of the faculty committee, but he disagreed with the conclusion that fraternities should be allowed to continue. On the contrary, he said, “I believe that their elimination altogether would be more advantageous both to the College and the Organizations which now maintain them [the houses].” Darden argued that fraternities and sororities detracted from the “spirit and unity of the student body as a whole,” by putting students into a small, tightly knit group that becomes out of touch with the rest of the student body. He also objected to the cost of belonging to such organizations and the added burden it placed on the parents of those students who wished to join. He saw no justification for this in institutions supported by the state.^[59]

Darden’ s negative opinions about fraternities may have been derived more from his assessment of practices at the University of Virginia than at William and Mary, although at least one alumnus felt that Bryan’s emphasis on social life had contributed to it. The Board listened politely to Darden’ s remarks, but it took no action. Still, his anti-fraternity stance caused an uproar in certain quarters, particularly at the University of Virginia.^[60] At William and Mary the fraternities and sororities expressed their disapproval of Darden’ s proposals, but Pomfret, who was then busy with his efforts to have William and Mary restored to the AAU’s approved list, showed little concern one way or the other. In a report to the Board of Visitors in March 1943, he took the position that if fraternity interests became dominant on a campus, this condition reflected broader problems of that institution. “One is likely to find that the college in question is not seriously preoccupied with its main business, which is education. Where interests are strongly intellectual, social relations tend to fall into their proper place.”^[61]

The one thing Pomfret did do was to ask the president of the student body, Hughes Westcott Cunningham, to appoint a committee of students to prepare a report on fraternities and sororities. Somewhat predictably, the fraternity committee of the Student Assembly issued a report on May 31, 1943, that wholly rejected Darden’s views. Membership in fraternities, it insisted, was an inherent right of organization in democratic society; it also denied that the costs placed an oppressive burden on students. The student committee concluded “that fraternities are a definite asset to college life,” but it made a few recommendations designed “to strengthen their value.” These included the building of a fraternity court (in which all houses would be alike in order to prevent expensive competition among fraternities), limiting the number of fraternities, and setting higher quality point averages in order to be eligible to pledge a fraternity.^[62]

By the time the student committee reported, the fraternity debate had become largely irrelevant. When the new session began in September 1943, there were simply too few upperclassmen to maintain the fraternity houses, which became inoperative for the remainder of the war. But the proposal for fraternity lodges found fertile ground. At a meeting on October 2, 1943, Pomfret proposed that the College use private funds to erect a number of lodges, without dormitory or eating facilities. The Board voted its approval, although it was obvious that nothing would be done until after the war.^[63] The Board reiterated its support for the plan in February 1945, subject to the governor’s approval. Shortly afterwards, in a reversal of his earlier anti-fraternity stance, Darden gave his consent.^[64] Again, there was no immediate implementation of the plan. After the war the Board reconsidered the matter, but ultimately upheld its lodge plan. The result was the construction during the 1947–48 session of the eleven lodges that for twenty years served as the center of fraternity life at William and Mary.^[65]

The Challenge to Athletics

Intercollegiate athletics were also seriously affected by the war. Through the session of 1942–43, the College managed to field teams in the major men’s sports, but with so many men leaving for military service, the prospects of continuing looked bleak by the spring. On June 4, 1943, Pomfret recommended that intercollegiate football be suspended for the corning season, unless the army allowed men in the ASTP to participate. Although reluctant to do so, the Board finally accepted his recommendation.^[66] There would have been no choice. Not one first string football player returned to William and Mary in the fall of 1943, and the commander of the ASTU, Major George F. McGinn, refused to allow his men to participate in varsity play. William and Mary was not completely without football in the fall of 1943, however, for Voyles was eventually able to organize some intramural teams and a 150-pound team that played a few games. Major McGinn relented to the extent of allowing some members of the ASTU to play, although they could not leave Williamsburg.^[67] In February 1944 the Board agreed “to sanction a modest program of athletics” during the 1944–45 session, with teams at least in football and basketball. Varsity football, of sorts, returned in the fall of 1944, but with a limited schedule. William and Mary ended the season with a hint of normality by defeating its traditional rival, the University of Richmond, by a score of 40 to 0.^[68] This was a forecast of the football triumphs that were to follow in the postwar years.

Despite the limitations on the athletic program during the war years, Pomfret knew that most of the Board of Visitors and many alumni strongly supported intercollegiate athletics, especially football. He was also aware of the dangers of overemphasis and commercialization. In a statement read to the Board in February 1943, he attempted to define a desirable athletic policy for William and Mary. Pomfret’s words are worth noting, for as the later athletic scandals sadly demonstrated, it was obvious that there were those at William and Mary who did not subscribe to such standards. “The College,” he said,

is not interested in any policy which, because of undue emphasis upon athletics, makes no positive contribution to the education and development of those who participate. The program of athletics must be of such a character that every student will have an opportunity to benefit from it. … The College does not and cannot regard its athletic program as a commercial activity. The principal purpose of the College is to train and to educate its students. Every activity, therefore, should contribute to this end and should be subordinated to it. … The College believes that its status as an institution for the educating and training of young men bears no relation to, nor dependence upon, the records of its various athletic teams. … The commercialization of college athletics leads to involvements of a nature which the college wishes to avoid. … The College freely recognizes, also, that it has neither the financial resources nor the numerous student body to maintain intercollegiate athletics on a large-scale basis; consequently it does not expect its Athletic Director to enter into competition with those who do.^[69]

Pomfret returned to the subject in a letter to members of the Athletic Committee of the Board of Visitors in October 1944. In this he reiterated his policy:

All students participating in athletics are required to meet the same standards for admission and adhere to the same scholastic standards as all other students. Secondly, all applicants for scholarship assistance to athletes go through the regular channels and awards are made by the Student Aid Committee. … All scholarship aid is based on merit or on need, or both. … Occasionally a boy comes to the College in the belief that his athletic skill entitles him to some special consideration. We discourage this attitude or any other attitude that would tend to set him apart from the other members of the student body. The College is not interested in setting up a special caste of athletes.^[70]

Read in the light of the excesses that have become so commonplace in intercollegiate athletics in America, Pomfret’s words appear idealistic and, to some sports enthusiasts, unrealistic. Had William and Mary continued to adhere to such standards, however, it would have been spared much later grief.^[71]

Despite the suspension of varsity play during the fall of 1943, football enthusiasts looked forward to the development of ever more successful teams as soon as conditions permitted. To the dismay of his admirers, however, this was not to be under the direction of Carl Voyles, whose position at William and Mary was undermined by accusations of personal misconduct. The Board of Visitors never held a formal hearing on the charges, but he lost the support of the rector and some members of the Board. Nevertheless, they eventually voted to offer him a new contract. At this point (March 1944), Voyles suddenly resigned to accept a position at Alabama Polytechnic Institute.^[72] Some of his admirers—and there were many—believed that Pomfret and others had used the rumors to get rid of him. As one of his supporters subsequently claimed, “Carl was not at fault in the least, but they magnified it and publicized it purely for what they thought they would gain by it.”^[73] The incident added to the belief among certain sports enthusiasts that Pomfret was an unreliable supporter of football. To replace Voyles, the College appointed Reuben N. McCray as director of athletics, head football coach, and assistant professor of physical education. Unlike Voyles, however, he was not made head of the Department of Physical Education for Men. McCray had come to William and Mary in February 1939 as head baseball coach and had worked as an assistant to Voyles in football.^[74] At the time of his promotion, Pomfret took pains to instruct McCray in the College’s regulations governing athletic eligibility and financial aid. For the duration of the war, Pomfret’s insistence upon strict adherence to these policies created no problems. But given the differences between his views on the role of intercollegiate athletics and those of some members of the Board and many alumni, the ground had been laid for future conflict over athletics at William and Mary.

They Also Served: The Faculty in Wartime

Students were not the only members of the College community to have their lives disrupted by the war. By the latter part of 1942, one after another of the male members of the faculty or administration began to be granted a leave of absence in order to enter military service or to take other war-related duties. As a result the College had to make numerous temporary adjustments. In June 1943 the Board of Visitors even mandated that thereafter all letters of reappointment would state that the president reserved the right “to reassign your duties (e.g., instruction in other departments than your own, administrative work, etc.) if conditions arising in these days of rapid change should make such reassignment necessary.”^[75] Such a change became necessary in the dean of men’s office after the assistant dean of men, John E. Hocutt, left for the navy in the spring of 1942 and the dean of men, J. Wilfred lambert, entered the navy in July 1943. Temporarily, the duties of the two offices were merged, and George H. Armacost, a professor of Education, was named acting dean of men.

By the 1943–44 session, nearly every academic department had been affected. Harold L. Fowler, then an associate professor of history, entered the navy at the end of April 1943, several weeks before the end of classes. Assistant Professor Bruce T. McCully had to take over the work in History 102 for the remainder of the semester, while Professor Morton handled the grading in Fowler’s advanced course.^[76] Similar adjustments had to be made in nearly every department after the departure of, among others, Roy P. Ash and Albert L. Delisle in biology; M. Eugene Borish, Joseph Bottkol, and Fraser Neiman in English; Shirley D. Southworth and Albion G. Taylor in economics; Lloyd A Doughty and Edwin C. Rust in fine arts; W. Warner Moss, Jr., in government; Cecil R Morales in modem languages; Donald Meiklejohn in philosophy; and Royal B. Embree, Jr., Richard H. Henneman, and J. Wilfred lambert in psychology. The Department of Jurisprudence lost the services of Frederick K. Beutel, who went on leave to take a position in Washington in 1942, and of Dean Theodore S. Cox, who entered the army in November of that year. Dudley W. Woodbridge became acting dean, but enrollments had fallen off so greatly that beginning with the fall semester of 1943, second and third year law courses were temporarily discontinued.^[77]

At the opening of the 1944–45 session, twenty-six permanent members of the faculty, more than a quarter of the total, were on leave of absence. Of these, eighteen were in the armed forces and eight were in government service.^[78] The disruptions were real, but, fortunately, all but one faculty member on duty in the armed forces survived the war. The lone fatality was M. Eugene Borish, an associate professor of English, who in the fall of 1942 had entered the United States Army Intelligence. Borish was killed in January 1943 as a result of the sinking of a transport ship on which he was traveling.^[79] Alumni casualties were far more numerous. An accounting done in the spring of 1946 revealed that eighty-eight former William and Mary students lost their lives during military service in World War II.^[80]

William and Mary’s struggles to maintain a faculty during the war years led to an unpleasant controversy with the local post of the American Legion, which was somewhat reminiscent of what had happened in 1919. This time the issue was the presence of two conscientious objectors on the faculty. One was Harrop A Freeman, an acting professor of jurisprudence, who was hired in January 1943 as a temporary replacement for Dean Cox. The other was Roderick Firth, who was brought in in September 1943 as an acting instructor of psychology and philosophy. Both men were Quakers and committed pacifists, and both made their position in this regard absolutely clear before they were hired. In fact, Freeman was overage and classified 2-A Firth had registered with his local draft board as a conscientious objector, and from August 25, 1942, to January 5, 1943, did alternative work in a Civilian Public Service Camp in New Hampshire. Subsequently, he was reclassified 4-F because of a heart condition.^[81] Apparently the Board of Visitors was somewhat uneasy about their continued employment at the College, and in June 1944 it appointed a committee to investigate the two men. But it subsequently agreed to their reappointment for the 1944–45 session.^[82]

The dispute with the American Legion did not begin until mid-September 1944, when Peninsula Post No. 39 passed a resolution deploring the presence of Freeman and Firth on the William and Mary faculty. On the basis of an alleged investigation of the facts, the Legion claimed that Freeman was outspoken in his views outside of class and that Firth had served in an internment camp, that his pacifist views were quite recent, and that he had been granted some special consideration in obtaining a 4-F classification. The resolution requested the Board of Visitors to dismiss both men on or before its next regular meeting.^[83] The Legion’s demand created a stir for a while, but there was really no case. Although there was no doubt that the two men were conscientious objectors, the Legion was quite unable to prove its specific charges. Significantly, it could produce no evidence that Firth had been given special consideration in obtaining his 4-F status.^[84] On September 28 the faculty adopted by a vote of fifty-six to one a motion introduced by Dudley W. Woodbridge, acting dean of the Department of Jurisprudence, which stated that it would “do irreparable injury to the College” were the Board to grant the Legion’s request and dismiss Freeman and Firth. The resolution requested “that all appointments in all capacities be made solely on the merits of the appointees without respect to their religious views or other beliefs.”^[85] In a report to the Board on October 7, Pomfret argued that since there was “no evidence of incompetence or abuse of professorial office,” to dismiss Freeman and Firth would be a violation of their liberty of conscience and academic freedom, although he cautiously reiterated that he did not sympathize with the position held by conscientious objectors. The Board apparently agreed, for it then adopted a resolution specifically rejecting the American Legion’s request.^[86]

The controversy resulting from the demands of the American Legion was shortlived. There is no evidence that many citizens in the area or across Virginia got very excited about the matter. Writing to Oscar Shewmake on October 20, Pomfret observed that “the whole conscientious objector matter seems to have dropped dead without even a thud.” Shewmake agreed. It was “a tempest in a teapot that would simmer down if not stirred too much.”^[87] Fortunately, both Pomfret and the Board refused to knuckle under to such outside pressure, and Freeman and Firth completed the 1944–45 academic year at William and Mary. Nevertheless, the Board was uncomfortable over their presence, and it requested the College administration not to appoint any more conscientious objectors ”unless for extraordinary and compelling reasons.”^[88] There were obviously limits to how far the Board believed it should go in defense of freedom of conscience.

Although the war accounted for most of the changes in the faculty during these years, there were also a number of significant losses due to death or retirement. John Stewart Bryan, chancellor since his retirement in September 1942, died on October 16, 1944. Kremer J. Hoke, a man who had played an important, if unspectacular, role in the development of William and Mary since 1920, died on February 6, 1944, at the age of sixty-five.^[89] Roscoe Conkling Young, the head of the Department of Physics and a professor since 1919, died at his desk in Rogers Hall on November 22, 1944, at the age of fifty-nine.^[90] Other losses through death between 1942 and 1944 included Tucker Jones, a professor of physical education; Thomas Jefferson Stubbs, an associate professor of history; and Andrew E. Harvey, an associate professor of modern languages.^[91] A transition of another sort was marked on July 1, 1944, by the retirement of the librarian, Earl G. Swem. Then age seventy-three, Swem had been a major player in the development of William and Mary since the beginning of the Chandler years. He had no intention of simply fading away, however, for he continued to spend some of his time arranging manuscript collections relating to the history of the College, working under a small stipend granted by the Board of Visitors.^[92] Swem’s departure symbolized the College’s transition to a new, postwar era. In the fall of 1945, only three faculty members remained from those who had come to William and Mary before 1920. Approximately 70 percent of the faculty had been appointed since 1930, most by Bryan or Pomfret.^[93] A new day was indeed at hand.

In difficult times Pomfret had done his best to maintain a semblance of normalcy. But during the years of the war, especially from 1943 through 1945, William and Mary was a very different place from what it had been or would become. Pomfret faced extraordinary challenges during his first three years as president of William and Mary, and, on balance, he met these creditably. His goal for William and Mary was to further its development as an undergraduate liberal arts college of high academic quality, but, until 1945 at least, he was necessarily distracted by conditions beyond his choosing. Although Pomfret’s first love was scholarship, not administrative details, he piloted the College safely through some difficult waters. It was not a time for building or major academic experimentation. Nevertheless, in 1944 one important new scholarly venture, the Institute of Early American History and Culture, which was sponsored jointly by the College and Colonial Williamsburg, finally got started after a long period of preliminary discussion. In a time when immediate, practical needs dominated the thinking of many, Pomfret kept alive the liberal arts ideals to which he believed William and Mary should be dedicated. In the process he earned the support and respect of most of the faculty. But then, as earlier, there were alternative visions of the College’s mission, especially among some alumni and certain members of the Board. Some feared the call for academic excellence; others continued to promote its role as a service institution. Many continued to identify the College’s prestige with its success in intercollegiate athletics. William and Mary had come a long way since 1919, and it had great promise for the future. But the path it would follow in the postwar years was far from certain.