Central HS Years
Central HS Years
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Central High School Years, 1923-1931
General Motors, born in Flint, emerged as the major consolidator of the auto industry. As GM grew so did its birthplace. In 1910 the population of the city of Flint was 38,550. By 1920 the population had exploded to 91,600 and by 1930 the city had grown to 156,500. This dramatic growth in the city’s population placed new pressures on existing (educational) services. The only four-year high school in the city was overflowing. In 1921 the Flint Board of Education commissioned Dean Allen S. Whitney of the School of Education at the University of Michigan to survey the educational system in Flint and make recommendations for its improvement. The Whitney Report painted such a dismal picture of Flint schools that the school board was divided on whether the report should even by published. They finally allowed Whitney to print it at his own expense. In the Whitney Report there is one brief foreshadowing of the junior college. Paul Packer, assistant superintendent of schools in Detroit and one of the authors, refers to several areas that await further study; mentioned among them is a junior college. Flint would have to focus on its grade schools and high schools before considering the possibility of a Junior College. Marie Prahl, in her doctoral dissertation on the development of the junior college, suggests that the problems of the Flint system might have been too extensive for the district to consider a junior college at that time. In the eight years that followed, the publication of the report, the district embarked on an ambitious building plan that included two senior high schools, six junior high schools and 13 grade schools. The first new high school to emerge from this building frenzy opened for classes in 1923 and was initially called Oak Grove High School. In 1927 the name was officially changed to Central High School. On May 23, 1923 the Board of Education minutes included a report from what was then called the “teachers’ committee” which read: “The committee on teachers recommends that a Junior College be started in September 1923 provided at least fifty (50) qualified freshmen make application for such work. One year of college work to be maintained this year. The Junior College established to be a standard Junior College in all respects so as to meet with the approval of the North Central Association.” H.E. Potter and E.E. Baker (In a small irony for the future, Baker was the president of Baker Business College.) Exactly who initiated the idea for a junior college in Flint is unclear. In a letter to Marie Prahl in 1960, Margaret Maddox, who served as registrar and assistant dean of the junior college, wrote: “Who first mentioned it to the Board, I do not know, but not Dr. Lewis, because Board members were interested in such a project as early as the spring of 1922….To have a junior college in Flint was just a part of a program of civic growth….I recall hearing much about the junior colleges in Detroit and Grand Rapids. That Flint should have one also was considered a matter of civic pride. Flint had its splendid new Central High School building on a campus that seemed ‘collegiate,’ and to start a college there seemed natural enough. Most of the members of the Board were university men, very proud of their school system, eager to improve it, and quite capable of conceiving the idea of adding a junior college without prompting from a school administrator. Horace Potter, Dr. Wildanger, John Pierce, Mr. Baker were especially active in promoting the interests of the college. Dr. Wildanger and Mr. Baker sent their sons…” The idea of a junior college may have been challenging to School Superintendent E.E.Lewis, for two reasons: 1. He came from Illinois, a state that had given strong support to the first junior colleges. 2. There was space in the new Central High School. It had been designed for 2000 students but enrolled only 1395 in 1923. Extracted and transcribed by Geraldine Waite from
a book by Paul Rozycki, A Clearer Image The 75 Year History of Mott
Community College (Paul Rozycki: Flint, MI, January 1998) |
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