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Up for sale a RARE! "Baylor University" W.R. White Hand Signed TLS Dated 1963.
ES-5875E
In
selecting a new president, the trustees recognized that the University needed
someone who had the ability to salve the professional worries of the faculty
and staff over the future of the institution -- fiscally and physically. Many
men were recommended and several of these were considered by the board, but the
only individual upon whom all the trustees could agree was "Billy"
White, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Austin, Texas. Losing both his
parents by eight years of age, William R. White was raised by his grandmother
in Frankston. Though frail and thin he had an unusual gift of concentration, a
unique ability for retention and a powerful voice that he used frequently on
the stage in amateur productions at Rusk Academy where he received his
preparatory training. As he grew up he became active in church life and
eventually decided to become a minister, being ordained three weeks prior to
his eighteenth birthday. He entered Baylor in 1913 but soon transferred to
Howard Payne College in Brownwood where the climate was more conducive to the
improvement of his health. Graduating in 1917, White enrolled at Southwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary where he received the doctorate in 1924 and then
remained to teach missions for the next three years. White left to pastor the
First Baptist Church at Greenville and then pastored the First Baptist Church
of Lubbock. He next served as executive secretary of the Baptist General
Convention of Texas, which was followed by pastorates at Broadway Baptist Church,
Fort Worth, and the First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City which he resigned in
1940 to become president of Hardin-Simmons University. He left that position to
become editorial secretary of the Baptist Sunday School Board in Nashville and
then returned to the First Baptist Church of Austin from which the Baylor
trustees beckoned him for service. At his inauguration on April 13, 1948, White
announced his desire to renew the religious emphases of the institution and to
build additional facilities to enhance the school's physical plant. To the
packed Waco Hall audience he said "Those who launched Baylor University
had a definite concept of its two-fold purpose. It was to serve the church and
the state. I shall add what they always implied -- the world. By the church
they meant the body of Christ as an institution. They meant for Baylor to
provide lay and ministerial leadership for our Baptist churches. They intended
to influence culture and society with our great distinctive principles. They
wanted to enrich and enforce the kingdom of God through Christian
education." He then added that Baylor must lead in keeping active these
great distinctives. White further emphasized Baylor "is committed to the
great principles of the American way of life and we want to see those
principles preserved and given a larger application to every phase of
life." Within a year enrollment on the Waco campus passed the 5,000 mark
(5,102) with a few hundred more in the programs which were being offered in
Dallas and Houston. Additional facilities, both temporary and permanent were
constantly on the drawing board and rising from the ground. The Union Building
was soon completed, the football stadium was constructed, and plans for the
Tidwell Bible Building and the Browning Library began to take final shape. Over
the next few years White concentrated on facilities, student recruitment, and
fund-raising. He was quite successful in all these endeavors and in the fall of
1954 he reported that enrollment was still near the 6,000 mark and many improvements
to the campus were underway. During the next two years construction highlights
punctuated all University reports as Martin Hall, Allen Hall, Tidwell Bible
Building, Morrison Constitution Hall, Speight-Jenkins apartments, Roxy Grove
Hall, and Ruth Collins Hall were completed. At the end of this period it was
reported that endowment had grown from the $3.3 million when White became
president to $10.8 million and the University's assets, including the Waco,
Dallas and Houston facilities, had increased from $17.1 million to $32.3
million. In 1958, even though enrollment was dropping slightly, White announced
new construction plans that included the business school building, a new
science building, another men's dormitory, the expansion of the bookstore and
the renovation of several smaller facilities. Urban renewal proposals to remove
the poor housing areas northeast of the campus also began to be discussed, and
in 1959 with the creation of the Baylor-Waco Foundation, the University
embarked on the first step of what would become a highly successful campus
expansion and enhancement program. In 1959, feeling that his talents could
better be used in development and public relations functions rather than as an
administrator, White worked with the trustees to change his responsibilities so
that he would be allowed to travel and represent the University in these roles.
To do so, the trustees made School of Law Dean Abner V. McCall executive vice
president with authority to oversee the administration of the University. This
arrangement continued until 1961 when McCall became president of the University
and White was named chancellor.