Junior College: Norfolk (NB) Junior College

Year Established: 1928

Date Closed: 1932

Location: Norfolk, Nebraska

Historical Highlights:

Norfolk Junior College is notable in two respects. First, it was organized extra-legally in 1928 with the cooperation of the University of Nebraska's Extension Division, apparently in reaction to the 1927 decision of the Nebraska legislature to kill a permissive junior college act that would have clarified the legal status of junior colleges already in operation in the cities of McCook and Scottsbluff, and which had also been actively promoted at Lincoln by a number of Norfolk's leading citizens. Second, following the Nebraska legislatures adoption of a junior college act in 1931, it would be forced to close even though it secured the endorsement of a simple majority of local voters in a state-mandated referendum because the 1931 act required a supermajority of 60% for the creation of a public junior college. Not until 1941 would junior college proponents in Norfolk successfully secure the supermajority required under the law, permitting the organization of the second Norfolk Junior College.

Reacting to an Uncooperative Legislature

Norfolk was one of several aspiring cities in Nebraska -- much like McCook and Scottsbulff -- that found itself, in the first quarter of the 20th century, with a rapidly growing high school population, a strong tax base, no proximate college, and no reason to expect that one of the traditional college sponsors, whether a religious body or the state government, would fill the gap. The feasibility of establishing a public junior college as a means of securing a form of proximate higher education, even though such an institution was not expressly permitted in state law, increased significantly in 1926. That year, the communities of McCook and Scottsbluff organized Nebraska's first public junior colleges without any apparent ramifications, and Norfolk (with nearly 10,000 residents) was far larger than both McCook (with a population of just 6,000) and Scottsbluff (with a population of slightly more than 8,000.)

As described by Saylor, et al., the Norfolk school board's decision to establish a junior college following the defeat of the 1927 junior college act was not rash, but only followed upon a reasonable degree of deliberation. Before any decision was made on establishing a junior college, not only did a committee of Norfolk civic leaders first visit the junior college in McCook, they also traveled to five other junior colleges in Iowa, so as to better understand the facility, equipment and organizational needs of a successful junior college. Moreover, in February, 1928, the city's leaders also held an informal public referendum on the question of establishing a junior college, which returned a vote of 1,072 in favor of the action and 426 opposed.

Shortly after the favorable referendum, the Norfolk school board established the extra-legal Norfolk Junior College. The board stipulated that the junior college was to be housed on the third floor of the city's senior high school and begin offering instruction in September, 1928. To assist in organizing the junior college, the board also appointed Dr. Barrett A. Greer the junior college's first dean. Among his first actions, Greer moved to secure accreditation of his new institution from the University of Nebraska.

Unrealized Potential

By regional standards, Norfolk Junior College enjoyed a fair degree of success at its opening. Its inaugural class, which consisted entirely of freshmen, totaled 67. This number was considerably more than the 50 students enrolled in the typical junior college of Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma of this time, and was achieved despite the junior college's restriction of admission to only those students both academically eligible for admission to the University of Nebraska and with the means to pay what was the then the substantial tuition of $54.00 a semester. Through 1929, the college continued to grow, reaching an enrollment of 104 freshmen and sophomores, which necessitated the employment of a faculty of ten.

Unfortunately for Norfolk Junior College, the effects of the Great Depression were felt early in the Plains states. When the junior college opened for the 1930-31 academic year, its enrollment fell below 90, likely as a consequence of the inability of some potential students to meet its tuition charge. By March, 1931, the circumstance of the junior college worsened further with the Nebraska legislature's passage of a junior college act (Nebraska Laws 1931, c. 48, p. 146). While presented as a means of "legalizing" the state's existing extra-legal junior colleges (including Norfolk), a careful reading of the act makes evident that its intent was to curtail the number of public junior colleges in the state. It was not simply that the act required any school district intending to organize a junior college have a minimum assessed valuation of $5,000,000 and an average daily attendance of 200 students in its high schools (requirements that effectively precluded any community of fewer than 3,000 residents from organizing a junior college), but it took the unusual step of further requiring that a proposed junior college secure a supermajority of 60% of district voters. It was this last provision that proved the undoing of the original Norfolk Junior College.

Easily satisfying the assessed valuation and enrollment requirements of the 1931 junior college act, Norfolk's school board petitioned the state school superintendent for authorization to hold a referendum that would permit the continuation of its junior college. In April, 1932, the state superintendent granted the Norfolk school board's request, and a special election was set for May 24, 1932 -- at the worst point of the Great Depression. Yet, despite the difficulties of the time, a majority of those voting in the referendum cast their ballots for the junior college. Unfortunately, the 1,274 favorable ballots (out of a total of 2,189) fell a mere 40 votes short of the 60% required for approval of the measure. Under the terms of the state's junior college law, Norfolk Junior College was voted out of existence.

Local junior college advocates, however, did not accept this initial set-back. Believing, according to Saylor, that several hundred voters favorable to the junior college had failed to vote, while all those opposed had voted, these advocates acted within two days to secure 1,200 signatures on a petition for a second referendum. This request was approved by the state superintendent quickly, and a second election was set for June 24, 1932. During the month of June, a spirited campaign, including parades, was carried out on behalf of the junior college that was spear-headed, interestingly, by junior college students and recent graduates of Norfolk's high school who had planned to attend the junior college that September.

Regrettably for the students, their efforts appeared to have the opposite of their intended effect. When the votes from the second referendum were counted, while the number of favorable ballots had increased to 1,836, the number of negative ballots had grown to 1,405 -- putting the proponents 109 votes short of the required 60% majority. With this second referendum, Norfolk Junior College's fate was sealed, and it was simply closed. Not until 1941 would another referendum be attempted, and with that vote, overwhelmingly favorable, Norfolk Junior College was re-opened. Interestingly, the Norfolk school board set the tuition for its reincarnated junior college at just $45 a semester, certainly in an effort to make the institution more accessible than it had been in 1928.

Sources:

Galen Saylor, et al, Legislation, Finance, and Development of Public Junior Colleges, (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska, 1948): pp 110-116.

Frederick Robert Struthers. The Development of Community Junior College Legislation in the United States to 1961, (University of Texas: Ph.D. dissertation, 1963): 89-91.