{"id":8807,"date":"2011-07-01T12:11:56","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T16:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=8807"},"modified":"2011-07-01T12:11:56","modified_gmt":"2011-07-01T16:11:56","slug":"raymond-walters-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2011\/07\/raymond-walters-redux\/","title":{"rendered":"Raymond Walters Redux"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kevin Grace<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Raymond<\/a>Former University of Cincinnati president Raymond Walters (1932-1955) has been on our minds recently because of UC naming changes.\u00a0 In June, the Board of Trustees voted to change the name of its branch campus, Raymond Walters College, to UC-Blue Ash in order to bring consistency to university branding and degree programs (UC-Clermont is the other branch campus).\u00a0 However, as the university moves into a new era of semesters, admissions requirements, and academic challenges, its history isn\u2019t forgotten as the Blue Ash campus will rename one of its major buildings to maintain its recognition of Walters.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Raymond Walter’s service of 23 years represents the longest tenure of any of UC\u2019s presidents and incorporates a time when the university underwent great changes.\u00a0 Even as UC continued positioning itself as a \u201cuniversity of the city,\u201d Walters saw it through the Great Depression, World War II, the initial influx of veterans taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, and dramatic increases in research and enrollment.\u00a0 In terms of the latter, Walters became a national leader in compiling and using annual collegiate enrollment surveys.<\/p>\n

\"Raymond<\/a>Walters was an interesting man, in both his personal and in his professional lives.\u00a0 He was the last UC president not to have a Ph.D. \u2013 he held a Master\u2019s in English.\u00a0 Raymond Walters was also an authority of some note on the life and career of 19th<\/sup> century composer Stephen Foster, who spent time in antebellum Cincinnati as a shipping clerk.\u00a0 Walters amassed a large collection of Foster music, recordings, and books, so much so that a special room in Blegen Library (then the Main Library) was used to house it all, officially called the Stephen Foster Room.\u00a0 The walls were painted with murals of an imagined Foster life on Cincinnati\u2019s waterfront.\u00a0 After he retired and Walter Langsam became UC\u2019s president in 1955, Walters\u2019 Foster collection became part of the UC Libraries\u2019 special collections (US-93-1<\/em><\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0 As one enters the lobby of Blegen Library and looks above the door to the Classics Library graduate students reading room on the right, one can see a faint image of Foster room signage on the terrazzo that was used to make wall repairs.<\/p>\n

One of the most valuable legacies of Walters\u2019 time as president is the collection of his diaries housed in the University Archives in the Archives & Rare Books Library (UA-73-20<\/em><\/a>),\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The diaries detail the events, the people, and the everyday happenings on campus and in his private life, giving the reader an intimate look at UC and the life of a president.\u00a0 The entries are often tender, especially when he talks of his wife (\u201cBob-o-link\u201d) and their life together.\u00a0 Other remarks concern the changes \"Raymond<\/a>on campus (Armory Fieldhouse opened in a snowstorm as the Bearcat basketball team beat the Indiana University Hoosiers).\u00a0 There are also entries on the visitors to campus and the people he entertained in his home on Interwood Place in Clifton.\u00a0 The details of a particular visitor do not appear in the diaries, but his son, the late Philip Walters, once told of the time when H.G. Wells stayed at the Walters home.\u00a0 Wells apparently liked his scotch, and trying to accommodate his guest, the teetotaling president bought a bottle and put it in the refrigerator.\u00a0 Philip, coming downstairs to the kitchen for a late night snack, found Wells fuming and fussing at Americans\u2019 ignorance of how to handle scotch.<\/p>\n

In the past few months, we have had another glimpse of the private side of Walters.\u00a0 While browsing in a Washington, D.C. used bookstore, a Bearcat alum came across a book on the shelves, opened the front cover, and immediately knew that it would be of interest to UC.\u00a0\u00a0 So, she sent it to the Archives & Rare Books Library.\u00a0 \u00a0The volume is William Dean Howells\u2019 Literary Friends and Acquaintance<\/em>, and it came from Walters\u2019 personal library.\u00a0 He had marked the book with both his stamp and his bookplate so we are afforded a look at a title that Walters owned in his youth and, perhaps, influenced him in his academic endeavors.<\/p>\n

\"Raymond<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition to the Board minutes that document his presidency and the diaries that reveal his private life and professional musings, the Archives & Rare Books Library also hold extensive biographical and photograph files on Raymond Walters \u2013 still remembered and still honored at the University of Cincinnati.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kevin Grace Former University of Cincinnati president Raymond Walters (1932-1955) has been on our minds recently because of UC naming changes.\u00a0 In June, the Board of Trustees voted to change the name of its branch campus, Raymond Walters College, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[67,52,66],"class_list":["post-8807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arb","category-uclibraries","tag-rare-books","tag-uc-history","tag-university-archives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}