Under President Mark Scully’s leadership our school experienced tremendous growth – thanks to the arrival of post-war baby boomers – and took on its modern appearance, including the evolution from college to Southeast Missouri State University in 1972.
Comparable to Dearmont over a generation before, the Scully years between 1956 and 1975 are prolific in size and shape. Enrollments swelled five-fold, from 1,500 to 8,000 mostly baby boomer students, as did faculty from 67 to 331. Fifteen new degree programs were added.
Campus expanded to twenty-two buildings, with twelve new structures including the Towers Complex, Brandt, Grauel, Magill, Parker, Scully, and the University Center. Kent Library and Academic Hall were significantly renovated.
And similar to Serena in the 1920s, Scully also sought to insulate Southeast from the turbulent 1960s, budding counterculture, and growing pains in higher education, when the times were a changin’ on college campuses nationwide.
Southeast adhered closely to what young protesters in the Vietnam era decried as the policy of in loco parentis, where schools took on parental reasonability to police student behavior.
A dress code required young men to wear slacks and buttoned-down shirts and for women long skirts or dresses. No blue jeans. Nor was kissing or handholding allowed. Folklore had it that picture ID cards were initiated so Scully could identify male students with long hair. Punishment for failing to comply with the president’s rules ranged from loss of driving privileges to expulsion.
