Kleinpell Fine Arts
Classroom Building
(1973)
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Eugene H. Kleinpell (1903-1983) Kleinpell Fine Arts Classroom Building (1973) |
Whether he was at a Board of Regents meeting, talking to an alumni group, on the golf course, conferring with a faculty committee or drinking coffee at O'Brien's Cafe, President E. H. Kleinpell had one thought foremost in his mind: the future of the college at River Falls. It dominated his every waking moment. Perhaps it even invaded his sleep, for he had great dreams for the institution.
When, in February of 1956, at alumni dinners in Hudson and River Falls, he predicted that enrollment would double in 10 years, many scoffed. Enrollment at the time was 913 students. Ten years later it was 3,281!
In July 1946, Dr. Kleinpell came to the River Falls campus from Valley City (N.D.) State Teachers College, where he had served as president. The enrollment in 1945-46 had been 211 students. The physical plant consisted of North Hall, South Hall, an Industrial Arts Building, the Health Cottage and two barns for the College Farm along with a converted army barracks for married students. He foresaw the return of veterans to the campus and increasing demands on higher education.
When he resigned 21 years later, the enrollment was 3,545, five major academic buildings, nine residence halls and a new heating plant had been added. The college farms had added more than 300 acres. All this had not come easily. But from his own experience, Dr. Kleinpell knew the value of education. Born in Monona, Iowa, the only son of a harness maker and his wife, he attended the University of Iowa to earn his bachelor's degree. At the University of Chicago he received the master's degree and, at the University of Ohio, the Ph.D. in history. He was the first president at River Falls to hold the doctorate.
Dr. Kleinpell instituted the general education (later basic studies) program and pushed for the addition of liberal arts courses to the College's offerings. He arranged for establishment of the Alumni Foundation -- a first for a State Teachers College in Wisconsin.
With increasing enrollments, resources were never adequate to meet needs. President Kleinpell would tell legislators, "If you would give me what it costs to build one mile of freeway, I could do wonders."
He enjoyed working with students and maintained an "open door" policy. Students could see him at any time. He kept a supply of candy bars in his office and pupils from the campus school soon learned of the "open door" and "treats" available. He had many grade school visitors.
One of his favorite quotations was Robert Browning's, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" President Kleinpell sought change. He once told a faculty member, "If you have a new idea you want to try, go ahead. If you fall flat on your face, I won't hold it against you." To find directions for change, he instituted a "Biennial Survey." Every two years faculty members were asked to list "strengths" and "weaknesses" of the institution and to suggest ways to build on the strengths and overcome the weaknesses. He read the survey returns carefully.
President Kleinpell contributed to higher education in Wisconsin in more ways than leading the River Falls campus. When the Coordinating Council for Higher Education was established in 1956, he was appointed as the representative of the State Colleges to serve on the joint staff. He gave all his energy to both his job as president and his joint staff position. He served in the latter job for six years without extra compensation.
After resigning at River Falls, he worked for a year as assistant to the president at Nova University in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., but then returned to River Falls where he wrote In the Shadow, a book recounting the struggles of a small institution to gain funding and recognition when it lives in the shadow of the dominant large state campus. The work was published in 1975.
Without ever changing desks, he had served as president of River Falls State Teachers College, River Falls State College and Wisconsin State University at River Falls.
When President Kleinpell resigned, alumni, faculty, students and other friends began raising funds to get a "Kleinpell Carillon and Tower." Money for the carillon was raised quickly and the bells began chiming from the roof of North Hall at Commencement in May 1968. But funds were lacking for the campanile or tower. In 1984 the Foundation resumed the project and conducted a fund drive. Roy Sakrison, a graduate of 1912 and active Foundation Board member for many years, offered to match up to half of the $68,196 cost. The tower, which stands in front of the Kleinpell Fine Arts Building, was dedicated Sunday, Oct. 14, as part of the 1984 Homecoming festivities. Sakrison and Mrs. Dorothy Kleinpell, widow of President Kleinpell, were present for the ceremony. The campanile was designed by architect Lowell Hanson of Spring Valley.
Attached to the south wall of the Kleinpell Fine Arts Building, the sundial was placed in recognition of the services of Richard D. Swensen, who joined the River Falls faculty in 1955 and served as chairman of the chemistry department and, from 1969 to 1988, as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In 1988 he returned to teaching and retired in 1993. As dean, he instituted faculty exchanges both in Europe and the Pacific Rim and brought numerous internationally recognized individuals and groups to the campus.
He was named as UW-RF Distinguished Professor by the Johnson Foundation and was chosen Distinguished Teacher of the Year in 1970. He led workshops or consulted with chemistry and physics departments in Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea and Poland. He served two terms as chair of the University Faculty Council (predecessor of the Faculty Senate) and three terms on the River Falls School Board.
In June of 1970 Dean Swensen, Grace Swensen and their six children went on a camping trip to Europe, including time in Heidelberg, Germany. It was during the visit to the castle in Heidelberg that Dean Swensen saw the large, vertical face sundial on the wall of the castle. Immediately the large (39' high x 58' wide) south facing wall of the Fine Arts building at River Falls came to mind as an appropriate location for a sundial.
The vertical sundial was designed by Dr. John Shepherd, a member of the physics department. It represents fields in which Dr. Swensen is keenly interested: Science - represented by the precision of time keeping and the study of astronomy; History - the sundial is the oldest known instrument to measure the passage of hours and days; Art - the reproduction and presentation of information; Multiculturalism - sundials are found all over the world in many cultures. The sundial, with a horizontal measurement of 56 feet and a vertical measurement of 31 feet, is the largest and most accurate one of its kind in North America and is a striking functional sculpture.
When the Kleinpell Fine Arts Building was constructed and dedicated, there was a Recital Hall in which musical events took place, many of them led by Professor William Abbott, chairman of the Music Department 1957-1969 and a professor of music until his death in 1980. Upon the recommendation of the Music Department faculty, the Recital Hall was renamed Abbott Concert Hall after his death.
At the dedication program, Oct. 17, 1982, there were musical numbers by the Alumni Brass Quintet, Chamber Singers and the Alumni and Concert Choir. Following remarks by Dean Richard Swensen and Chancellor Field, there was a slide presentation of Abbott's photographs and a woodcut print was displayed in the lobby. This talented musician was born in Lincoln, Neb., educated in Baker and Northwestern universities and had served on several college faculties before coming to UW-River Falls in 1957. He also found time to perform with the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Guthrie Theatre. A memorial scholarship in his name has been established by the Music Department. Proficient on several instruments, Abbott founded the St. Croix Valley Symphony and originated the minor in piano tuning in the Music Department. Though he had many interests in music, he was not enthusiastic about marching bands or even shooting off a cannon after touchdowns at football games!
When they receive a master's degree at River Falls, most students don't read about it and see their photos in Orlando, Miami, Los Angeles, St. Paul, Milwaukee, La Crosse and Columbia, Miss. Most don't receive a congratulatory letter from the U.S. President. But all these things happened to Grace Pilgrim Bloom.
She received her M.S. in teaching degree with a major in English at the fall commencement in 1972 at the age of 86. She had received her bachelor's degree in history at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1908. She began working on her master's degree in 1968 taking a night class. Later, she began commuting 40 miles from her home in Osceola where she served as editor of the Osceola Sun, a weekly newspaper that had been operated by her late husband.
She continued to have an interest in history and her thesis was "Osceola Yesterday and Today." She said at the time of her commencement, "My age doesn't make me such a special graduate; I'm just an ordinary woman who perseveres."
Her story made the Associated Press wire and appeared along with a picture of her and her advisor, Dr. Marion Hawkins, from coast to coast. She said, "I'm going to continue to study, of course. I have the study habit so deeply that I couldn't get rid of it if I wanted. Let me tell you, if I were a younger woman I'd be beginning my Ph.D."
She died in her sleep Sept. 6, 1978, at the age of 92.
Student plays have long been a part of campus life at River Falls and consequently a theatre was planned when the Kleinpell Fine Arts Building was built in 1972. It was not until April 27, 1991, that it was named the "Blanche Davis Theatre" in honor of the former chair of the Speech Communication and Theatre Arts Department.
Dr. Davis had joined the university faculty in 1949, after having an undergraduate degree from Illinois State University and the Ph.D. from Columbia University. In her career she developed the speech and theatre programs and enhanced the role of theatre on campus and in the community.
Professor Dick Swensen said he was "always impressed with the high quality of her productions, which were comparable to any fine university production in the country." Her colleagues knew her to be an efficient and hard worker, yet "a pleasure to work with." Students knew that she demanded high standards in all that she did. Assistant Chancellor Wayne Wolfe said that students would always "put her at the top of the list when they remember River Falls."
One night two of Dr. Davis' colleagues drove down Cascade and noted that only three lights were burning in South Hall. Professor Vera Moss observed that "only Blanche Davis and the bathrooms are working."
Dr. Davis directed plays and the department for 25 years before her retirement in 1973. When she returned for the dedication of the Blanche Davis Theatre, her colleagues paid tribute to her many contributions to the theatre at the university. An artist's view of her was presented after the ceremony and a scholarship has been contributed by her friends to a student in the department.
Dr. Davis' career as a creative and demanding professor of speech and drama was also shown in the closing part of a poem she had written in 1981 about "Lincoln, Mencken, and God."
The old man laughed, and said to God, "But they never agree -- Their ideas are always varyin' " "That's right," mused God "They do sound Unitarian."
Alberta Greene joined the faculty at River Falls in 1923 and taught art here until her retirement in 1945. She had received her B.S. degree from Teachers College, Columbia University. She came as director of the art department but, for many of the early years, she was the art department.
Prior to coming to River Falls she had taught art in high schools in Pipestone, Minn., Lewiston, Mont., and Walla Walla, Wash. She also had taught at a normal school in Monmouth, Ore. Her water color paintings were exhibited throughout Wisconsin and at the Chicago Art Institute. She was a member of the Association of American Artists.
After her retirement, the art department honored her in 1961 by naming their studios in South Hall "The Alberta Greene Studios." A plaque indicating this was placed in the hall outside. With the opening of the Kleinpell Fine Arts Classroom building, the art department was moved there. The name of the studios and the plaque were moved with it.
Dan Hartman was a student from Amery, Wis., having transferred to River Falls from St. John's University where he had studied for the priesthood. While a student here he participated in the Soviet Seminar and later made a bicycle tour of Hawaii and other places. Though he had a serious automobile accident after graduation, his interest in the world was not diminished. He met his tragic death in a plane crash on Mt. Denali, Alaska, at the age of 30 years.
Dr. Ruth Hale, chair of the Department of Geography, said of him that "he had an unbounded curiosity about people and places," was always open to new adventures and "in his short life he crammed about as much living into his years as was humanly possible." The Geography Department's Student Resource Room was named in honor of this "very special young man."
This room is dedicated to Nicholas Jadinak who served on the Music Department faculty from 1947 to 1974. His specialty was the violin but he taught general music courses in both the campus school and university orchestras over the years. Elliot Wold, the long-time chairman of the Music Department, said that Nicholas Jadinak never missed a day of teaching over the years and was a dedicated member of the Community Orchestra that has provided so many musicians an opportunity to perform.
When Dr. Gilbert N. Smith retired in 1972 after having been on the economics staff for 21 years, a room in the Kleinpell Fine Arts Building was named to honor him for his many years of service. Dr. Smith was proud to say that he had grown up on one of the longest streams in America, Lodgepole Creek in Nebraska, and often returned to his old home where life for dry country farmers had been hard in the depression years.
Despite these difficulties, Dr. Smith held degrees from Boston University, Oklahoma City College and the University of Nebraska. He had taught economics at several universities before joining the UW-River Falls staff in 1952. When he retired, he expressed the hope that he had "accomplished the main objective of stimulating and challenging students." His colleagues spoke of him as "a dedicated teacher" and as "one of the giants of the faculty."
In the basement of the Kleinpell Fine Arts building is an experimental theatre room carrying the name of Sanford D. Syse, assistant professor of speech at UW-River Falls from 1963 to 1973. He attended Augsburg College and held B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He was well known in this region for having originated and directed the St. Croix Valley Summer Theatre and was active in the St. Croix Valley Arts Guild.
Syse died Nov. 28, 1973, after a siege with cancer. The Syse Experimental Theatre Room was dedicated April 27, 1991, at the same time as the Blanche Davis Theatre. Syse established a scholarship for theatre students before his death.
Dr. Wyman joined the Social Science staff in 1932 and spent his career in River Falls until retirement in 1978, excepting five years spent as President of the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater. His teaching fields were in American frontier history and folklore, and he wrote several books in those areas.
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