Title: For UK Board of Trustees History Buffs

Davy Jones comments:  “The UK Library Archives has kindly provided me scanned images of color slides of the January 20, 1967, UK Board meeting from the University of Kentucky Department of Public Relations Photographs collection (accession 2003ua030).   To my knowledge, these are the earliest color photos of the UK Board of Trustees ‘in action’ at a Board meeting.  The meeting is set in ‘the old Board room’ of 103 Main Building.  Here are four photographs of the original slides in their archival boxes when I looked at them in the Breckinridge Research Room:”

"The first image below is a ‘panorama’ of the full Board, with yellow arrows pointing to Lucille Blazer (second woman Board member) and the two Faculty Trustees (Paul Oberst, College of Law; Stephen Diachun, then-College of Agriculture/Department of Plant Pathology)."

 

"The second image below is a close-up showing President John Oswald, Governor and Board Chair Ned Breathitt, and the President’s Liaison to the Board, Anne Wilson."

This is the fourth post in an occasional series, “Davy Jones’ Locker.”  Follow along with Davy Jones, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology in the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, as he explores various aspects of University of Kentucky history through the University Archives and online at ExploreUK.uky.edu.  The “locker” in the accompanying photograph is one of the cubicles in the Special Collections Research Center’s Breckinridge Research Room where researchers can put their personal items.

 

Title: Brief Highlights of History of the UK Senate (Student) Retroactive Withdrawal Appeals Committee

Davy Jones comments:  “Prior to 1997, there was no specific policy on student retroactive withdrawal after the end of a semester, and so “outside of the rules” ad hoc requests would come to the office of the Senate Council Chair.  The original committee considering the substance of appeals was not a Senate committee –“it was organized through the Disability Resource Center and was intended to hear cases of students with disabilities. As more and more students applied for retroactive withdrawals, and there were increasing numbers of students who came with non‐disability issues, the committee was moved under the purview of the Senate so that it would be more of a faculty‐ and academic‐based committee.” (University Senate: 10/13/2008).” 

 “In 1997, the University Senate then replaced this process with a Senate Retroactive Withdrawal Appeals Committee (University Senate: 12/08/1997):     

 ‘[Senate Council Chair] Roy Moore said that there were several problems that the Task Force saw. First, different colleges were using different standards, different forms, and doing it in different ways.  If they are happy with that, fine.  If there is going to be consistency and fairness then there should be a uniform process. … The problem is that as a Senate Council Chair you have one College bringing complete documentation, the next has zero.  As far as consistency it is impossible.  There are serious legal ramifications as far as ADA is concerned.  You have Senate Council Chairs who have no legal background whatsoever.  Hopefully the composition of the committee will have individuals of that type of background.  There will be better decisions and less potential for lawsuits.’” 

 “Over subsequent years, various tweaks to the codified process have been made, such standardizing a single University-wide application form (University Senate: 04/12/1999), or another tweak to not allowing retroactive withdrawal to be used to remove an E grade that had been imposed as a result of academic offense (University Senate Council: 04/03/2006).  Another tweak was providing for the opportunity, but not requirement, for the course instructor to provide information in the student’s application for retroactive withdrawal (University Senate Council:  04/30/2007):

 ‘She [Committee Chair Katherine McCormick] said that there were colleges who operated in different ways, specifically with regard to the proposed Instructor Feedback Form (IFF). The SRWAC also wanted colleges to be more uniform in the processing of RWAs regarding stops.’” 

 “The 2019-2020 Annual Report of the Senate Retroactive Withdrawals Committee provides some information on the nature and number of the cases recently heard by the committee, including: 

‘[Committee Chair] Donovan (LA) went over the report and noted that requests are still high, but lower than the previous year. The number of applications is still high enough to justify moving forward with the planned changes to procedures to streamline the workflow. He pointed out that there are ongoing difficulties for applicants because of administrative reasons. These are often due to students who think they have withdrawn online for a semester but have not because the system will not drop a student’s last course online. They must do it in person, but they aren’t always aware of this. SRWAC recommends that there should be better communication with students about this issue.’”

This is the third post in an occasional series, “Davy Jones’ Locker.”  Follow along with Davy Jones, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology in the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, as he explores various aspects of University of Kentucky history through the University Archives and online at ExploreUK.uky.edu.  The “locker” in the accompanying photograph is one of the cubicles in the Special Collections Research Center’s Breckinridge Research Room where researchers can put their personal items.

 

Title: Dr. Joseph W. Scott, first Black UK faculty member

Davy Jones comments:  “Very well known is the story of Dr. Doris Wilkinson, the first UK female Black faculty member, hired in 1967, and to whom UK recently bestowed an Honorary Doctorate.

“However, apparently less well known and less expressly documented in our archives is the story of Dr. Joseph W. Scott, the first Black UK faculty member, hired in 1965.  For a presentation, I was looking for a picture of Dr. Scott contemporary to the time, which turned out there are few.  I did finally fine these two, and en route learned a number of aspects of Dr. Scott’s story. 

 

Left photo credit:  “Scott, Joseph W., Assistant Professor of Sociology, undated.”  University of Kentucky Portrait Print collection (accession 2001UA028)

Right photo credit:  Undated image from folder “Scott, Joseph, 2001-2002.”  University of Kentucky. Department of Public Relations biographical files (accession 2010ua009)

“Dr. Scott (Bachelor’s Central Michigan University; Master’s, Doctorate, Indiana University) was hired by UK President John Oswald, with final Board action 03/19/1965, as an Assistant Professor in Sociology.  Upon his arrival, Dr. Scott encountered ... as a middle-class professional ...  that there were no integrated middle-class neighborhoods in Lexington at the time.  He was the first Black resident in the previously all white neighborhood, about which he commented to the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper on June 22, 1965: “It was quite a natural move for me, although it may have seemed unnatural to some people of Lexington,” Scott said.  “Even when growing up in Detroit, I never lived in a segregated neighborhood.  To segregate myself would be the change, not integration.” 

“While at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Scott secured as PI (principal investigator) a federal Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) Training Project grant.  He was reappointed on 07/01/1966, but after this second year left UK in 1967.   Upon arriving at Notre Dame in 1970, he established and was first Director of an attention-attracting Black Studies program.  He eventually arrived at the University of Washington, where he retired into his current Professor Emeritus status.  He continued to be active, both publishing and in advocacy activities, especially with the Ethiopian American community (from which roots his ancestry)." 

“The only file in the UK Archives on him contains two documents.  One is his CV, as updated May 2001.  The other is a small testimonial he sent to UK Public Relations in 2002, on his time here during the mid 1960s (attached here).   While it was relieving to read that he enjoyed his Dept. of Sociology faculty colleges, it was distressing to read his description of what he and his family went through in their home residential area."   

Photo credit: Email from folder "Scott, Joseph, 2001-2002." University of Kentucky. Department of Public Relations biographical files (accession 2010ua009).

"He described living in an area with a name something like “Belmont.”  So, I retrieved the fall 1965, 1966 and 1967 Lexington telephone books.  For fall of 1965 and 1966, a “Joseph Scott” lived at 136 Delmont Drive.  I looked that up on a Lexington map, and it is in the Cardinal Valley area of Lexington.   I then checked a bit the history on that Delmont Drive area.  One segment of that street was built mostly during the 1930s-1940s.  The section of Delmont Drive containing his address was apparently new housing built in 1961."

This is the second post in an occasional series, “Davy Jones’ Locker.”  Follow along with Davy Jones, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology in the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, as he explores various aspects of University of Kentucky history through the University Archives and online at ExploreUK.uky.edu.  The “locker” in the accompanying photograph is one of the cubicles in the Special Collections Research Center’s Breckinridge Research Room where researchers can put their personal items.