1971-1981: The Abegg Decade

Winter 1982 issue of Hilltopics

Jerry Abegg: the man, the educator, the public citizen … in each of these roles he has helped to shape the Bradley University of today.

President Abegg

Student unrest of the ’60s had shaken public confidence. Bradley University was experiencing financial difficulties. Enrollment was starting to decline. The future of the institution appeared to be as bleak as the weather on that cold November day in 1970 when DR. MARTIN G. “JERRY” ABEGG ’47 HON ’93 was named the acting president of Bradley University. A short time later, in June of 1971, a search committee unanimously agreed that Abegg was the man for the difficult task ahead and submitted his name to the Board which quickly approved his appointment as the seventh president of Bradley University.

The search committee and the Board of Trustees realized that the early 1970s would be critical ones for Bradley University and higher education. They wanted a leader who could provide a steady and stable hand as the institution faced the growing pressures of an age of uncertainty. They thus turned to a man who had already devoted a quarter of a century of service to the University, as an instructor, department chairman, and dean in engineering, to set the course. They hoped that he could provide at least four solid years of leadership, which at that time was the average tenure for college presidents.

President Gerald Ford with BU President Abegg in 1976

Bradley President Martin "Jerry" Abegg shares a smile with President Gerald R. Ford during a program at Bradley University in February, 1976. Ford was in Peoria to receive the Everett McKinley Dirksen Chair from the University.

Little did anyone realize that his service as president would continue into the 1980s. Stability is what was needed in those days of the 1970s, and stability is exactly what Jerry Abegg provided.

The fact that Bradley University has emerged from his first decade as president as one of the most respected institutions in America is a tribute to his leadership, his vision, and his sensitivity to the various publics served by and serving the institution.

Focused on the future: A revitalized curriculum

“The times they are a changing” — so sung the folksingers of the sixties, predictions that came all too true. The 1970s filled the world with change to be met by the citizenry and challenged institutions to prepare students to live and work in the ’80s. Bradley changed too — not wandering far from its founding goal of providing students with “a means of living independent, industrious and useful lives,” but reasserting that goal in the context of its role as an independent, multipurpose alternative to large, research-oriented universities and small liberal arts colleges.

That reassertion was strongly reflected in curriculum revisions and revitalization. In one short decade, the academic structure of the University was reorganized into six undergraduate colleges to improve programs while exacting administrative efficiency and economy. A Division of Life Planning and a Division of Student Services were created to consolidate support groups. In addition, an Academic Exploration Program was created to meet the needs of students undecided about their majors and futures. An Office of Retention monitors student satisfaction and prevents unnecessary attrition.

New academic majors, options, and programs, such as nursing, finance, management, information systems, manufacturing, engineering, and physics are offered to equip students with skills for the future. Cooperative education programs, program minors, and the introduction of interdisciplinary coursework allow students to work and learn in response to changing times, and in preparation for their inevitably changing lives.

Defying the Trends: A burgeoning enrollment

Enrollment at Bradley has consistently increased since 1975, a record justifiably envied by other private institutions across the country. While the number of college-age students has been declining, Bradley has continued to attract and graduate qualified students.

More students are coming to Bradley, and more are staying here. Retention has increased by 12 percent over the last decade, due in part to the University’s commitment to provide an environment that meets students’ intellectual, social, and recreational needs. A full 85 percent of freshmen return to Bradley for their sophomore year, a figure considerably higher than the national average.

Bradley has been able to attract more than its share of Illinois high school graduates and has also enrolled an increasing number of out-of-state students. International interest continues to increase, and now some 300 international students from 30 foreign countries attend Bradley.

Student interest, as indicated by major choice, has also shifted during the past decade. More students today are interested in engineering and business fields than in 1970, and new interests in the communications and health fields are indicated by the distribution of students within the University.

The Best and the Brightest: High quality students

Students, as the saying goes, will be students, but the categories and characteristics of the student body have changed throughout the ’70s.

Quality is up — high school rank and average ACT scores of entering students have consistently improved during the Abegg decade, and the entering freshman class of 1981 is in the top 20 percent among all college students in terms of national test scores and high school rank. The grade average for undergraduates reached its peak in 1975 and has been declining slightly since, as Bradley faculty continue to set high standards and demand quality performance from their students. Today at Bradley, 44 percent of the students are women. Almost half changed their major at least once during their stay here, and one-fifth were awarded commencement honors.

Nontraditional students compose a larger portion of the student body than in past years — one-fourth of all students were over 24 years old at the time they graduated, and most transferred credit from some other institution.

During the past 10 years, students have received national recognition. On five separate occasions, a Bradley student has placed in the top two in competition for outstanding industrial engineering student in the country. The forensic team has an impressive record, including first-place honors in the prestigious American Forensics Association tournament. The Bradley Chorale has been recognized internationally, the swim team went undefeated, and the Bradley Braves captured the Missouri Valley Championship. Other Bradley students have been honored in a variety of competitions from the sciences to English and from construction to accounting.

Teaching and Learning: A faculty of professionals

For faculty, the decade of the ’70s was one of uncertainty. As student populations diminished, curricula changed, and economic outlooks darkened, faculty ranks were depleted by 25 percent. This depletion prompted significant internal analysis and a two-year planning study launched in 1975.

Faculty numbers have stabilized in the past five years, with a present total of 275 full-time members. Doctorates among faculty have increased by five percent, and tenured positions have decreased nearly 20 percent. A significant change in faculty composition occurred with the academic reorganization and created a relatively equitable distribution among most of the colleges. The colleges of health sciences and communications and fine arts were added to the University structure in 1977, thus joining the existing colleges of business administration, education, engineering and technology, and liberal arts and sciences.

Bradley faculty moved with the administration into a shared authority system of governance, where both groups work together to develop, act upon and participate as partners in the University’s future.

Bradley faculty are, first and foremost, teachers, but have exhibited impressive skills in research, scholarly activities and professional service, and many are active as consultants and as leaders in their fields. Nine faculty members have served as presidents of the recognized national organizations in their disciplines during the seventies.

During this decade of change, Bradley faculty have expanded their roles, increased their productivity, but preserved their central purpose — to teach.

Toward Solvency: In-the-black budgets

The battle of the budget bulge is a never ending one for colleges and universities. The attempts to balance revenues and expenditures, to pit ever-increasing needs against always-inflating costs, and to reconcile expanding program wants with depleting resources is a challenge faced by all institutions of higher education. Bradley has accepted that challenge fearlessly, and has met it more effectively than most: by 1979, the downward fiscal trend that had plagued most of the ’70s was reversed, accumulated debt was retired, and a negative fund balance was eliminated.

Efforts have been made during the past 10 years to increase endowment contributions, and thus lessen Bradley’s dependence on tuition (presently 86 percent of the operating budget is derived from student fees).

In the last five years, gifts totaling $4 million have increased endowment by more than 25 percent. Bradley has broadened its base of financial support by qualifying for, and receiving, three $100,000 challenge gifts from the Joyce Foundation. These successes were even more significant when one considers that the number of alumni donors also increased dramatically.

As Bradley looks to the ’80s, it will attempt to meet continuing fiscal challenges with effective cost reporting control, improved utilization of the University’s resources, increasingly sound management of investments, and greater emphasis on support from the private sector.

Jerry Abegg: President, husband, father

Life wasn't all business for Jerry Abegg — he knew how to have fun, too!

Life wasn’t all business for Jerry Abegg — he knew how to have fun, too!

Throughout his years in the Bradley presidency, Jerry Abegg has been a public figure who is perhaps one of the more visible people in the community in which he lives and at the various alumni and educational meetings he attends. Yet there is a very private side to Jerry Abegg. He and his wife, Barbara, have been able to find some precious and private moments together in their log cabin in Door County, Wis. Door County has long provided the quiet setting and natural environment that have enabled Jerry and Barb to put the pressures of the Bradley life behind them.

The strong moral and ethical fiber of this remarkable couple has been inherited by their two sons, Marty and Bob, both of whom are now studying for or practicing the ministry in Tacoma, Wash., and Dallas, respectively. Both sons graduated from Bradley during that period in which their father was president. A further indication of the quality of this family was the fact that the Abegg sons never tried to influence their father on issues pertaining to their schooling or on issues that their friends focused upon during a period of unrest in higher education.

It was also during this same hectic period when Jerry inherited the Bradley presidency and when his two sons were in their critical late teenage years that Jerry and Barbara had two new additions to their lives. Barbara’s brother and his wife were killed in a tragic accident, and Barb and Jerry agreed to care for their young sons, Thad and Bill, then ages four and six. At a time when their first family was almost grown to maturity, they started a new family and saw that those young boys had a home during their important formative years.

Jerry Abegg has always been able to keep his public and private lives separate, and his family has been strengthened by that commitment.

Rejuvenation and Expansion: A bigger, better campus

The place that is Bradley University has changed and grown during the last 10 years, with new buildings, landscaping, and laboratories to provide an equipped environment for students’ personal, academic, and recreational needs.

New student residences, built in response to increased enrollment and the appeal and efficiency of on-campus living, dot the campus. They include the student apartment building, Fredonia Hall (a one-story facility), and a complex of three single-room dorms. Parking areas have increased accordingly. These new housing units, which accommodate 450 students, have been built at Bradley during a period when most educational institutions were standing pat in anticipation of enrollment declines.

Social and recreational facilities have been added to the environment. The Romeo B. Garrett Center is the hub of Black cultural and social activities. Haussler Hall is the three-story physical education complex, complete with gyms, pool, dance studio, and weight rooms, and provides intramural and recreational outlets for students’ spare time and energy.

The Hartmann Center for the Performing Arts, fashioned from the old Hewitt Hall, is a showplace for art exhibits, an auditorium for theater productions, and a center for other cultural and entertainment activities. A recently acquired church is being transformed into a music recital hall and practice center for University bands.

Regardless of the changes in physical plant, the mood and the spirit of the environment has not changed. There still exist the student-filled quads, the Westlake clock, stripped of some of its ivy garb, and the color of the sunken gardens.

Impressions of Abegg

“I have been amazed at the multi-facet management complexities being handled so capably by President Abegg during his tenure. I quickly sensed both the strength and the warmth of his forthright approach to the attainment of high standards of performance in achieving the goals of the University. Through his effort and staff direction, the University has steadily improved its natural reputation to the point of being recognized as one of the nation’s major private universities.”

— Lewis J. Burger, Retired Senior Vice President, WABCO Chairman, Bradley University Board of Trustees

“If Dad is half as effective a university president as he is a father, then he is a great president.”

— MARTY ABEGG ’72

“In working with Dr. Abegg, I grew to admire and respect him as a highly motivated and effective administrator, a dedicated educator, and above all, a sensitive and caring man.”

— JUDY RYBICKI ’80, student body president

“Jerry Abegg has significantly influenced many Board of Higher Education recommendations over the years, and his fairness and low-key style usually leaves the Board wishing they could do more for the cause he represents. I have come to rely upon his counsel and leadership, and I’m proud to be associated with him professionally and as a friend.”

— DR. RICHARD WAGNER ’60, Executive Director, Illinois Board of Higher Education

“I believe that the student, faculty, and supporters of Bradley University had a more positive, practical outlook because of Jerry’s leadership. This has resulted in a steady growth in academics, athletics, and physical improvements to the campus.”

— MEYER J. JACOBS ’39, Chairman of the Board, Madison Park Bank, Alumni Trustee and Supporter of Bradley University

“President Abegg has demonstrated that the best interests of the University are not in conflict with those of the faculty, but, on the contrary, are nourished by teachers and scholars economically secure, intellectually free, and who share responsibility for the institution’s governance.”

— Dr. Kalman Goldberg, Professor of Economics, Past President, University Senate

“The complement to the quality of life in our city that Bradley University provides in large measure relates to the stable guiding hand of Jerry Abegg. Peoria has been very fortunate in this regard.”

— RICHARD E. CARVER ’59, Mayor, City of Peoria

“In a very difficult period for higher education throughout the country, we’re most grateful and fortunate to have Jerry Abegg’s steady hand at the head of our dear alma mater.”

— Congressman ROBERT H. MICHEL ’48, Minority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives