Under the new UC college structure, the Department of Coordination began to establish an identity that was unique among co-op institutions. Coordinators served as faculty members whose sole responsibility was the effective operation of the cooperative education program as a method of educating UC students.
In 1950 the first African Americans entered UC's co-op course, Henry Thomas Brown and Clark Beck. Both remember those years as ones of intense struggle. Beck had actually tried to enter Purdue University's engineering program but the dean wouldn't even look at his transcript. "He broke my heart and I left with tears in my eyes. Mom and I drove straight to UC because I'd heard of the co-op program and I figured it would pay my way. Even though I arrived unnanounced, the dean came out of a meeting to see me. He looked at my transcript and said, 'You can come if you want to but you'll catch hell.'" Brown remembers that even though he made the Dean's list every quarter, UC could not find him an actual engineering co-op. Except for one year's co-op at Republic Steel as a laborer, Brown had to work the remained of his co-op quarters in campus labs.
The cooperative education program at UC attracted students from all over the U.S. Architecture student Sandy Koufax credits co-op from coaxing him away from his native Brooklyn. "Being out of school half the time sounded good to me", he laughed. But co-op couldn't quite keep its hold on the man who would arguably become history's greatest left-handed pitcher.
In 1956 the University of Cincinnati celebrated the 50th anniversary of cooperative education. A week long Panorama of Progress drew over 50,000 visitors to campus to view a dramatic display of the amazing industrial progress of the past half century by 74 co-op firms from 25 cities and ten states. Atomic energy, a symbol of the most dramatic development of the past 50 years, threw the switch to light the "Panorama" on opening night as the main area of the new University Field House was filled with exhibits and interested visitors.
The 50th Anniversary Celebration for Co-operative Education took place on the campus of the University of Cincinnati from April 19 - 25, 1956. Thursday, April 19, was Herman Schneider Day, filled with open houses at co-op colleges, an honorary degree convocation, a reception and dinner and the dedication of the Herman Schneider Quadrangle. Friday, April 20, was Youth Opportunity Day, with speakers focusing on the challenge of the future and America's future scientists, engineers and managers and a time capsule was sealed into the south wall of Alms Hall. Saturday, April 21, the honor societies took center stage, with awards luncheons and the Panorama of Progress was entering the home stretch. Before the celebration ended on April 25, thousands of Cincinnatians had walked through this remarkable exhibit.
Oscar Robertson began playing UC Bearcat basketball in 1957-58, the same year he began co-oping for the Cincinnati Gas and Electric Company, alternating school and work like any other co-op student. In 1958 the NCAA charged that if Robertson was in the workplace rather than the classroom then he wasn't a student and, therefore, ineligible to play the game. The UC President Walter Langsam quickly countered that co-op was integral to education at UC as it was a requirement to graduate, students were enrolled while on co-op and the university documented co-op with a grade on the transcript. The NCAA took about a year to reach a decision that co-op could be properly characterized as education, but it was too late for Robertson to go back to co-oping. Still Robertson remembers co-op fondly. "It was a great experience", he reminisced. "I think every college should have co-op. I grew as a person because of the people I met. I got to see corporate life as it really is, not what the books say it is."
The first co-op schedule was one week on the job alternating with one week in the classroom as the integration of theory and practice took place on Saturday morning when both sections got together with Herman Schneider to discuss their learning. By 1934 co-ops began working on 7-week alternating schedules. It wasn't until 1963 that co-op students began taking classes on the same schedule as all other UC students when UC adopted the quarter system.
