Clarence A. Steele was the chairman of the Exploratory
Committee and Advisory Council to the Northern Virginia University
Center (NVUC). The Center was established in September 1949 as an
adult education extension of the University of Virginia (UVa) at Charlottesville.
A few years before, the idea for a center was set into motion. Seeing
an opportunity for educational expansion and recognizing the needs
of the growing Northern Virginia population, University of Virginia's
Extension Division, headed by Professor George B. Zehmer, formed an
Exploratory Committee to work out a feasibility plan for creating
an extension in Northern Virginia. The upshot was the Northern Virginia
University Center, which became fully operational in February 1950,
with six classes enrolling about 50 students.
The Extension Division named John Norville Gibson
Finley as the Center's first director. The Center's administrative
offices and "campus" were located on the campus of Washington-Lee
High School in Arlington, Virginia. During the Center's early years,
it offered college-level courses for adults. By the fall of 1953,
the Center grew to 55 classes with 900 enrolled students. The Center,
which had set out to serve only the immediate Washington metropolitan
area in Virginia, expanded to serve an area that encompassed a radius
of thirty miles around Arlington. This significant growth forced the
Center to reevaluate its mission to the population it served. So in
1954, an Advisory Council formed to examine the challenges of expansion
and to consider a "possible change of character" for the Center. Moreover,
it was asked to "interpret the community and its desires to the University"
and to "assist in creating a climate of demand for the educational
services offered."
The Advisory Council consisted of sixteen members,
all of whom resided in Northern Virginia. The Council's first meeting
was on January 4, 1954, in Washington-Lee High School, and was chaired
by Clarence A. Steele, former chairman of the Center's Exploratory
Committee, which the Council superceded. As chair, Steele presided
over meetings and directed the activities of the Council. Together
with Mr. Zehmer, head of the Extension Division, and President Colgate
W. Darden of the University of Virginia, the Council explored ways
to convert the Center into a formal branch of University of Virginia.
Steele and the Council immediately began a dialogue with prominent
members of the community, including Virginia Senators Charles R. Fenwick
and Harry F. Byrd, Jr., hoping to find support for a branch of the
University of Virginia.
In order to establish a branch, the Center had
to comply with standards enacted by the Southern Association of Colleges
and Secondary Schools, of which the University of Virginia was a member.
Standards included: (1) a centrally located building sufficient for
administration and instruction; (2) a sizable nucleus of full-time
faculty members to ensure permanence and continuity; (3) adequate
library and laboratory facilities; (4) a stable pattern of course
offerings. Aware that the Center did not meet all of these conditions,
the Advisory Council used the Southern Association standards as a
foundation for their proposal. Steele thereby formed committees to
focus on meeting the standards. The committees included: Building
and Grounds, Ways and Means, Public Relations, Legal Council, and
Research. This focus streamlined the Council, allowing members to
use their expertise most productively. President Darden gave his full
support to the endeavor, providing his own philosophy as an impetus:
"bring the University of Virginia to the people"
and "promote adult education formally and informally; culturally as
well as technically."
The most important task facing the Council was
the search for a location for the new college. Throughout late 1954
and all of 1955 they searched for tracts of land suitable for a permanent
location. In the meantime, the Northern Virginia Center (as the Center
was now called) continued to grow, expanding to 110 classes with 2,100
enrolled students in the spring of 1956. More startling was the prediction
that enrollment would reach 8,000 adult students within a decade.
This, along with the area's growing number of high school graduates,
necessitated a new emphasis: one which would make the branch an affordable
two-year institution with day classes - serving all students, not
just adults. At this time, a Virginia House Joint Resolution passed,
"authorizing the establishment of a branch of the University of Virginia
to be located in Northern Virginia" (passed by the House of Delegates
and the Senate of Virginia in February 1956), thereby providing the
legal underpinning to continue the expansion of the Center.
By early 1956, many locations for the branch
had been scouted out and researched. President Darden insisted that
the college "have an appropriate campus, an ample campus, ample acres
for spacing buildings, for parking, for playing fields of various
kinds, for woods and vistas." Later in the year, three sites were
seriously considered: the Ravensworth estate, between Annandale and
Springfield, along Braddock Road; the Bowman or Herndon tracts, on
the Sunset Hills farm land near Herndon; and seven Prince William
County sites, including one along the border of Manassas Battlefield
Park. In the summer of 1956, the Advisory Council unanimously endorsed
the Ravensworth site. But not long after, a sub-committee assigned
by the University of Virginia Board of Visitors was charged to survey
the locations, and, to the Council's chagrin, it recommended the Bowman
tract.
The disagreement arose from an apparent conflict
of interest between the Advisory Council and the Visitors sub-committee.
A few years prior, the Virginia Advisory Legislative Council to the
Governor and the General Assembly (VALC) drafted a report, recommending
that new university branches should only be two-year institutions
and be self-supportive. In other words, VALC "wanted to establish
urban branches [without dormitories] where students could live at
home," and thus raise the cost of tuition, saving the state from unnecessary
expenses.
Accordingly, in their search for branch locations,
the Advisory Council looked for sites that would accommodate a "2-year,
non-dormitory type of institution ONLY." They found the Ravensworth
site ideal for those purposes. Conversely, the Visitors sub-committee's
choice of the Bowman tract - a much larger and even more isolated
area - clearly "envisioned a full scale dormitory type institution."
The Council was unaware of the University of Virginia's plan to establish
a large, four-year college with an extensive campus, and was unprepared
for such a shift in focus.
Gathering what support they could, the Council
sent delegations from Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax Counties to
persuade the Board of Visitors to reconsider. Several members of the
Visitors were openly antagonistic to the Ravensworth site, mainly
because the Bowman tract offered a firmer political base to the region.
Others felt that there was "little use for Northern Virginia" for
the future of the University. After some debate the Visitors dryly
agreed to "take the whole matter of establishing a branch under advisement."
A few years later, in 1959, the Council and the Visitors settled their
differences and decided on an entirely new site: the Farr tract, the
site on which George Mason University now stands, located less than
one mile south of Fairfax City.
The Advisory Council to the Northern Virginia
Center, with Clarence A. Steele at the helm, faced many challenges
during the early years of its existence. The problems associated with
growth, the evaluation of educational needs in Northern Virginia,
and the search for a new location for the University branch occupied
much time and required considerable investment.
This collection contains papers and material
owned by Clarence A. Steele relating to the Advisory Council to the
Northern Virginia University Center. Included are minutes of meetings,
letters, newspapers, and miscellaneous documents.
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the Clarence A. Steele Collection Finding Aid
