University in crisis: University of Nevada, 1952--1958

The traumatic drama enacted at the University of Nevada during the presidency of Minard W. Stout was symbolic of the growing pains experienced by many colleges and universities during the decade of the 1950s. The uncertainties of the Cold War, the rapid demographic changes, the unrelenting technological advances, and the fears of internal subversion all interacted on the Nevada campus to challenge the old conservative order. Stout was brought to the university by the Board of Regents in an attempt to at least control, if not reverse, the changes that were inherent in the new order.;His attempt to return the campus to its pre-war model focused on the repression of academic freedom and a stifling of faculty and student governance. His authoritarian administration (1952--1958) splintered the academic community and created antagonistic factions throughout the state. Before it ended the university administration had been investigated by the state legislature and the AAUP, the loyalty of its faculty had been challenged, the governing board had been reorganized and the entire institution became the focus of a statewide political controversy. But Stout's authoritarian administration, not unlike those of many other small, rural educational institutions, gave the University of Nevada the last needed push to force it out of its provincial complacencies and into the rapidly advancing world of the mid-century.