In a recent biographical dissertation by Dr. William F. Harlow, Jr., completed at Texas A&M, the author entitled his work: “Ralph W. Steen and the Business of Twentieth Century Texas Education.” Harlow’s conclusions in his Chapter 5 on Steen as a college president are summarized below:

Steen felt that there was inertia in East Texas and at SFA.:

“Steen had always equated growth with progress. In the case of SFA, his view was that quantitative growth could provide the resources for qualitative improvements. Thus building facilities, recruiting students, advertising the school, and increasing the level of activities on campus would result in betterment of the entire climate. Steen later said, “I wanted SFA to quit being so sleepy and to get everything moving. I wanted us to grow.”

“Anyone who had watched Steen's career closely could have anticipated these goals. Since his days as an undergraduate at McMurry, Steen's competitive urge had led him to win more debates, write more books, join more clubs, give more speeches, teach more students. As department head at A&M, he had increased faculty and course offerings and had proposed a master's program. Yet sheer quantity was not sufficient. To Steen, more and better were complements.”

With every positive opportunity on his side, such as the baby boom and a changed climate for education in the nation after Sputnik, Dr. Steen made the most of his opportunities, but he frequently failed to acknowledge that it was happening everywhere and that most of the changes were external. Harlow also calls “criticism of Boynton ... an enduring theme” in the early Steen years at SFA. “Steen used his early success in transforming the campus to cast his predecessor, Paul L. Boynton, in an unfavorable light. ... As late as 1973, he was still reminding the Rotarians that not a single building had been erected on the campus between 1938 and 1954, a period he called a sixteen-year vacuum. ... Other people with no particular ax to grind could better appreciate the former president's efforts.”

The Heritage Series discusses the buildings referred to in Harlow in more detail elsewhere this week, such as the building of the University Center and the controversy over the building of Dorm 15 (See, Steen Building Program and Griffith Park)

Harlow calls Steen's reactions “the frustrations of a newcomer.” Concerning Steen’s speech to the Philosophical Society, Harlow writes: “Coming from the mouth of a college president, however, these words suggested Steen's vision of the college as a vehicle for regional advancement. If East Texas had been crippled by a lack of immigration, the college could import urban students and urbane professors. If the region had been made backward by provincial ideas, the college could introduce new ones. If it had lost its most capable young people, the college could help to retain the next generation. In these and other ways, Steen viewed the school as an ally of other agents of progress, such as the Nacogdoches and East Texas chambers of commerce and, later, the Deep East Texas Council of Governments.”

Steen understood “the politics of progress” and thought SFA had failed to grow because it defined its area too narrowly. So Steen sent recruiters to Houston and Dallas, and he hired a full time director of the Alumni Association.

Other Harlow conclusions:

“The flexibility and practicality of Steen's administrative style was never more apparent than in his handling of the issue of racial integration of SFA. On this question, like others, Steen was no crusader. ... Although certain that integration was coming, Steen realized that timing and circumstances were crucial in order to avert a hostile reaction.”

“Steen avoided any threat to his authority from the faculty organization.”

“Apparently Steen determined not to allow integration to interfere with his goal of raising academic standards.”

“Steen's insistence on standards ... also applied to the faculty. He criticized his predecessor for the dearth of doctorates ... [but] only four of the [Steen’s first] thirteen held terminal degrees, although several were apparently close to finishing their work.”

“Similarly Steen encouraged faculty research.”

“Steen also encouraged his faculty by personal example. ... His accomplishments as an author helped to make him a respected one.”

“Steen protected his privacy and had few intimate friends. ... A gracious hostess, Mrs. Steen had dutifully assumed her social obligations, but an apparent mental disorder eventually incapacitated her for long periods. Mrs. Steen ... died in her sleep before dawn, September 21, 1965. ... Her condition had heavily burdened Steen for five years. Now relieved of constant tension, Steen could throw his remarkable energy into building a college.”

In 1965, at Steen’s seventh anniversary as President of SFA, the vice chairman of the Coordinating Board recounted the many ways Steen had pulled the college up "by its bootstraps."

Harlow:

“Steen was proudest of many accomplishments which Gresham did not recount. Besides transforming the campus, he had indeed awakened a sleepy institution, operated it on a businesslike basis, and won the support of the community, while reaching out for students from other parts of the state. He had integrated the campus without arousing strong resistance. He had moved toward making SFA a cultural center of the region through encouragement of fine arts and by giving the newly created East Texas Historical Association a home on the campus. After five years of effort he was completing the final steps leading to accreditation of the School of Forestry by the Society of American Foresters. Finally, he had begun to make profitable use of the ex-students organization.”

“... Now that he had reversed the downward spiral, Steen, at age sixty, could look forward to greater accomplishments during the middle period of his presidency.”