With enrollment down and support from the Universalist Church drying up Buchtel College needed to find additional ways to stay solvent. President A. B. Church planned to raise $500,000 for an endowment for the college; $200,000 had been pledged but the 1913 flood and Rubber strike drastically slowed the fund raising efforts.
After A. B. Church’s untimely death Parke R. Kolbe became President of Buchtel College. Kolbe had taken over as a language professor after his father, who taught here for 35 years, had passed away in 1905. In 1913 as the College President he needed to find new ways to keep the college operating. In the April 14, 1913 Board Meeting, President Kolbe laid out his plans to turn the college over to the City of Akron. You can read about it in the Buchtelite May 1913.
To read more about this interesting time here are several Buchtelite articles:
Buchtel may become the University of Akron Buchtelite May 1913, Volume XXIV, Number 8
City Accepts Buchtel College; To Become University of Akron Buchtelite September 1913, Volume XXV, Number 1
New Directors of University of Akron decide on important changes to be made Buchtelite January 1914, Volume XXV, Number 5
Other sources for University of Akron history include:
Kolbe, Parke, The Municipal University of Akron: A History of its Establishment, Akron: The Municipal University of Akron, 1914 LD51.A62 H57 1914
Spanton, A. I., Fifty Years of Buchtel 1870-1920 Akron: Buchtel College 1922 LD661 .B52 1922
Knepper, George, New Lamps for Old: One Hundred Years of Urban Higher Education at The University of Akron Akron: The University of Akron 1970 LD51.A62 K6
