page_title: Franklin & Marshall College
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Franklin & Marshall College / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: Old Main, the central building in the Franklin and Marshall College campus
context_page_description: Franklin & Marshall College is a private residential liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It employs 175 full-time faculty members and has a student body of approximately 2,400 full-time students.
context_section_description: The college began a rapid period of growth after World War I. Enrollment rose from around 300 students in 1920, to over 750 by 1930. In 1924, the architectural firm of Klauder and Day presented a master campus plan in the Colonial Revival style. Dietz-Santee dormitory, Meyran-Franklin dormitory, the Mayser Physical Education Center, and Hensel Hall were all completed within three years. Two additional dormitories were planned at that time, but never constructed.
  The sesquicentennial celebration of Franklin College was held in mid-October 1937. Student enrollment at that time was 800. A commemorative plaque celebrating the sesquicentennial of Franklin College and the signing of the United States Constitution was presented to the college by the Lancaster County Historical Society.
  In 1939, the school began an aviation program in the new Keiper Liberal Arts Building. The Aeronautical Laboratory eventually became a government-sponsored flight school with 40 faculty members. Two airplanes were disassembled, moved into the building and reassembled on the third floor where they were used as flight simulators.
  During World War II, Franklin and Marshall College was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
  By 1945, with the majority of young men fighting in World War II, the college population dwindled to just under 500 students and 28 faculty members. The end of the war brought many new students who decided to pursue their education under the G.I. Bill. By 1946, enrollment had swelled to over 1,200 students (including four women permitted to study in the pre-med program), and there was a sudden critical shortage of faculty members.
  The 1950s and 1960s brought more college expansion and construction, including North Museum (1953); Marshall-Buchanan Residence Hall (1956), Appel Infirmary (1959), Schnader Residence Hall (1959), Mayser Physical Education Center (1962), Benjamin Franklin Residence Halls (1964), Pfeiffer Science Complex (now Hackman Physical Science Laboratory) (1967), Grundy Observatory (1967), Whitely Psychology Laboratory (1968), and Thomas Residence Hall (1968).
  Like other academic institutions in the 1960s, Franklin and Marshall experienced during the decade a series of student protests that were based on important social issues, such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. In April 1961, students rioted in front of the President's house and Hensel Hall, burning effigies and college property in protest of administration policies.
  Martin Luther King, Jr. visited the campus on December 12, 1963 and spoke about civil rights before a capacity audience of 3,300 in Mayser Center, the school's gymnasium.
  In 1965 Robert Mezey, a 30-year-old visiting English instructor and poet, spoke on campus against the Vietnam War, and traveled to Washington, DC to march against the conflict. When someone accused him of urging students to burn their draft cards, he was suspended with pay for a month while the college investigated. The incident caused widespread controversy in the local press, with some residents ordering him to "get the hell out of Lancaster" and "go to Russia." Though Mezey was later reinstated, he left the college the following spring. This became known as the "Mezey Affair."
  In the spring of 1969, black students protested the final examination of the history course "The Black Experience in America." Demanding an apology from the faculty for exploitation and an "A" in the course, the students argued that no white man can test them on their "blackness." The day before the exam, the professors agreed to the apology, but still insisted that the students take the final exam. On May 22, the day of the exam, 40 black students—many of whom were not enrolled in the course—blocked the entrance to the exam room in Old Main. The professors attempted to hand out the exam to the other students in the class, but the protesters confiscated them. Retreating to Goethean Hall next door, the professors and staff
caption: Old Main, Franklin & Marshall College, c. 1910
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