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The Presidents of Salisbury University from 1925 to Present
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Dr.
David Wilbur
Devilbiss
Service above Self
(1955-1968) |
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Dr.
Wilbur Devilbiss assumed the duties of president of Maryland
State Teachers College (STC) on July1, 1955. He arrived with a
mission to elevate emphasis on teacher training while down
playing the prominence of the junior college curriculum. While
this reversal of his predecessor’s policy which had sustained
the school during troubled times may first seem inconsistent
with perpetuating the institutions success, it represented a
shift in wider state policy which had begun in the last year of
Dr. Blackwell’s tenure.
Wilbur Devilbiss came to Salisbury with a background steeped in
the needs of the Maryland public school system. As a child his
first schooling took place in a one-room school house in
Johnsville, Md., later he graduated from Boys High School of
Fredrick County in 1921. Devilbiss received his Bachelor’s of
Arts in 1925 from Western Maryland and began his teaching career
a mere fifteen miles from STC at Mardela Springs High School;
ironically in the same year in which Salisbury Normal School
opened. Devilbiss returned to Fredrick County teaching in the
public schools there for six years, and served as principal of
Brunswick and later Fredrick High School for ten years
collectively.
In 1935 he received his Master’s degree from the University of
Maryland, and continued his graduate work at George Washington
University earning his Ed.D. By 1942 Devilbiss had ascended to
the position of supervisor of high schools for the State
Department of Education, eight years later he was promoted to
supervisor of teacher and higher education for the state of
Maryland. After only holding the position for two years Dr.
Devilbiss was named Dean of the University of Maryland’s College
of Education. His impress array of administrative skill and
hands-on experience made Devilbiss a natural choice to succeed
Blackwell as president of Salisbury Teachers College.
The state board of education and STC had historically at times a
tenuous push-pull relationship, where the state superintend
sought to restrict the expansion of Salisbury’s curriculum into
areas deemed beyond its founding ethos. On the eve of
Devilbiss’s arrival the professional avenues available to
graduates of the four-year teacher training program were to
teach at the elementary or junior high level. Students who
followed the four-year curriculum still benefited from the
tuition waver the state offered in return for a pledge to teach
at least two years in Maryland. Historically the training of
high school teachers was done at the larger institutions of
Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, and other
private colleges around the state. None of these institutions
wanted their traditional role challenged while the need for
elementary educators remained high state-wide. When Dr.
Devilbiss arrived Salisbury Teachers College had its largest
enrollment in school history with 346 students, of this group
257 had enrolled in the bachelor’s of education program.
President Blackwell’s dream of STC becoming Delmarva College
would have to seemingly be put on hold.
With his prodigious background in administering teacher training
Devilbiss seemed perfectly suited to rededicate the college to a
“singleness of purpose,” as he liked to say. During his first
week as president Dr. Devilbiss gave a speech to an assembly of
newly arrived freshmen describing the new course the college
would assume. In it he stated that “The taxpayers in the state
contribute four dollars for every dollar paid by a student
attending this college. If the student fails, the college fails,
and hence you are cheating yourself.” President Devilbiss was
know for using stark language to inspire the student body. His
approach consistently emphasized the theme that “in meeting
challenges we find the most enjoyment and profit.”
Author Sylvia Bradley recounted a speech Devilbiss gave to a
freshmen assembly a few years later where the same theme was
echoed. In it he asked the students to look first to their left
and then to their right, after which he informed the assembly
that “now, chances are that one of the three of you won’t be
here next semester.” Far from being scornful, Dr. Devilbiss
seized on the notion that stark statements of fact can do more
to motivate than contemptuous rhetoric. During the first few
years of his tenure dropout rates after the first semester were
as high as one-third of the freshmen class. However, according
to contemporaries within a few years Devilbiss’s approach began
to yield a change in the overall attitude of the student body.
For the first five years of his tenure he would commit himself
to the sole purpose of teacher training. |
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Drs. Smith, Crawford and Devilbiss |
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