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Time Machine: Virgil Hancher
Controversy surrounded his hiring as University of Iowa president in 1940, but he led campus’ growth for 24 years
In January 1940, at least a half dozen men were being considered to succeed Eugene A. Gilmore as president of the University of Iowa: Professors Karl E. Leib and Earl Harper and College Deans George Stoddard, Paul Packer and Francis Dawson.
So was Virgil M. Hancher, a UI graduate, who was a successful attorney in Chicago. He was a Rhodes scholar and had served as president of the UI Alumni Association, but he had no experience as an educator.
A faction of students was firmly in favor of Stoddard, dean of the Graduate College. Packer, dean of the College of Education, was favored by Walter Jessup, the UI president from 1916 to 1934.
Representatives from each of the university’s nine colleges met with the state Board of Education, the board that oversaw the state’s three public universities at the time, about who would become the UI president.
“One thing is certain,” a special Gazette report said, “the next president of the University of Iowa should be young. He should be aggressive, and, finally, he should have ideas, lots of them.”
By February, the scale was tipping toward Hancher, mainly because influential alumni favored him. Some of the state board members also liked Hancher for his business experience.
He was offered the presidency in the spring, but because some faculty claimed Hancher lacked the scholarship, educational and administrative experience to lead the university, Hancher declined the board’s offer.
In July, Chester Philips, dean of the College of Commerce, was named the UI’s acting president.
In August, opposing factions, realizing they would not be able to unite the faculty, found common ground when Packer did an about-face and endorsed Hancher at a special Aug. 28 meeting of the board in Iowa City.
A committee visited Hancher in Chicago on Sept. 8, 1940, and he accepted the job.
Announcement kerfuffle
Gazette Editor Verne Marshall wrote a page 1 story the next day about Hancher’s appointment, quoting Board of Education President George Baker.
The story was picked up by the Associated Press. Two hours later, Baker denied making any such announcement.
“As I told you earlier today,” Baker told Marshall, “I had no definite information about Mr. Hancher’s election to the presidency until after he had accepted it. Just after I talked with you this morning, I received a letter from a board member. In that letter was my first official information from the board about the Hancher appointment.”
The Gazette had learned Sept. 8 that the board had authorized board member Earl Hall of the Mason City Globe Gazette to release news of Hancher’s hiring to the Associated Press.
Even Iowa Gov. George Wilson was unaware of Hancher’s appointment until The Gazette contacted him for his reaction.
A lawsuit question
Hancher, a native of Rolfe in northwest Iowa, graduated from the UI in 1918, served in the Navy and attended Oxford as a Rhodes Fellow. A Phi Beta Kappa scholar, he returned to Iowa in 1922 and earned his law degree at the UI in 1924. He and his wife, Susan Collins, had three children.
Hancher had a lucrative and active practice with the Pope & Ballard law firm in Chicago. As UI president, he would be paid $12,000 a year — about $265,000 in today’s dollars.
But about a month after he was picked as the next UI president, Hancher was named in a Chicago lawsuit that concerned Victory Corp., a company formed in February 1928 to speculate in stocks and bonds at the height of the Roaring ‘20s. Then the stock market crashed in late 1929.
Hancher, after several years of stock market losses, sold his Victory shares to his mother at a $6,000 loss, raising some eyebrows though no fraud was charged.
Victory Corp. stockholder Thomas Tighe and several others sued and called on the UI to rescind Hancher’s appointment.
Iowa Board of Education President Henry Shull said the board discussed the lawsuit at a board meeting in October 1940 in Ames, and all board members agreed nothing about it disqualified Hancher from the presidency.
At helm of Iowa
While the controversy continued, the Dec. 1 date for Hancher’s installation as president was moved up. He was informally installed Nov. 1 during homecoming festivities that had star Hawkeye football player Nile Kinnick serving as master of ceremonies.
The formal inauguration came May 24, 1941. By then, Hancher already had obtained legislative approval for a central UI library and put an activities fee system in place.
During Hancher’s tenure, the university experienced unparalleled growth. In 1940, the UI had 6,670 students, a number than more than double to over 14,000 when he retired in 1964. In addition, the UI College of Medicine and hospitals had become nationally known.
“I have had a love affair with the University of Iowa for so many years that any affection for it can never die,” Hancher said on the occasion of his mandatory retirement. “It is my hope that every student who follows me will have that same rich experience.”
Hancher embarked on a two-year higher education job in New Delhi, India, working for the Ford Foundation. That was cut short when he died Jan. 30, 1965, of a heart attack at age 68.
In October 1972, a spacious, new arts auditorium was opened on the UI campus, named in his honor.
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