President of Days Past: Charles Dabney From: University of Cincinnati Currents Date: February 18, 2000 By: Carey Hoffman UC's Charles Dabney was a leader for the modern age -- way back in 1904. Though the name Dabney echoes prominently through the UC campus today, most people would be hard pressed to tell you anything about him with any certainty. That no longer needs to be the case, thanks to the efforts of Kevin Grace, assistant head of UC archives. Grace wrote an entry on the multifaceted career of UC's former president which appears in the latest edition of American National Biography, a premier biographical reference volume published by Oxford University Press. With the President's Day holiday coming up on Feb. 21, it seems an appropriate time to remember Dabney, who had tremendous influence in shaping the university we know today through his tenure as UC president from 1904 to 1920. "He brought the school into the modern era and made it a true urban university by making the university accountable to the community and the community accountable to the university as well," Grace says. Dabney, a Virginia native, had made a name for himself as a champion of the idea that the key to Southern prosperity lie in educational reform. By the time he came to UC, he already had served as assistant secretary of agriculture under Grover Cleveland and as a reform-minded president for the University of Tennessee. "What brought him here was the challenge of reforming an urban university," Grace said. "Since Cincinnati was borderline Southern, that was why he saw it as an opportunity." UC in 1904 was struggling to end a period of academic turbulence inflamed by power struggles between the university's benefactors, faculty, board of directors and Dabney's predecessor, Howard Ayers. When considering taking the UC position, Grace writes, Dabney requested a meeting with the infamous political boss George Barnsdale Cox, whose powerful grip on the city at that point included the then-municipal university. "He disarmed Cox by stating that he understood the nature of the university's problems and could not take the job without assurance that both he and the university would be exempt from Cox's patronage and political machinations," Grace writes. "Having received that assurance, as well as a pledge of support for bond and tax issues, Dabney accepted the position." Dabney would go on to hold the job of UC president for what is the second-longest tenure in school history, behind only Raymond Walters (1932-1955), although current UC President Joseph A. Steger will pass Dabney next year. Dabney's influence would be huge: he oversaw creation of the College of Engineering, the College of Commerce (now the College of Business Administration), Teacher's College, the School of Nursing, the Graduate School and evening courses for degree programs. The Miami Medical College and Ohio Medical College were both absorbed into the university, as was the Cincinnati College law program. A new city hospital was built that was considered a model teaching hospital. "He is the one who made this a true university rather than just a liberal arts college," Grace says. Grace cites Dabney's support of Engineering Dean Herman Schneider, who would create the practice of cooperative education in 1906, as his top accomplishment. Dabney retired from UC at age 65 in 1920. It wasn't until 17 years later that he capped his career with the publication of Universal Education in the South, a landmark two-volume study on Dabney's favored subject of the history and condition of education in the South. Dabney died in 1945 in Asheville, N.C., but his legacy continues to live on in the leadership he brought to UC.