Tent City and the Decades of our Discontent

Tent City and the Decades of Our Discontent
An Interview With Former Kent State President Michael Schwartz
A story exclusive to the online edition of the May 4 Burr.

By Amanda Young

From his fourth floor office in White Hall, former Kent State President Michael Schwartz leans forward in his executive chair and looks out the window. It's a rainy, miserable day in September -- much like one melancholy day in 1990. He shakes his head. Rests his pen. Rubs his eyes. Schwartz figured he had offered his last remarks in an ongoing saga that makes Kent State and May 4 one and the same. But he knows it's not true. "You wanna know something?" he asks, and launches a thoughtful conversation.

The autumn rain trouncing historical front campus reminds him of the memorial dedication on May 4, 1990. At least 4,000 people hovered under a canopy of umbrellas to receive Ohio Gov. Dick Celeste's apology: "On behalf of the state of Ohio, I'm sorry."

The relatively inexperienced vice president for Graduate and Research Studies, Schwartz found himself acting president of Kent State early in 1977. Faculty and staff were freezing in their offices -- administrators were forced to cut costs everywhere. That included shutting down the heating system in-between semesters. Enrollment had dipped consistently since the campus re-opened in the summer of 1970. The total enrollment of full-time students in fall quarter 1970 was 21,370. By 1974, enrollment had dropped to 19,796; it swung to an all-time low of 18,458 in 1979.

Kent State also had a hard time making payrolls. Low enrollment was a major variable that caused funding shortages.

"Actually in the fall of 1970, it was still pretty high, Schwartz says. "A lot of people came back to finish up. But in the next fall, in 1971, the enrollment just went down the tube. Slowly year after year, it would start to go up again, but in 1977 the Gym Annex situation just drove it in the tank."

Call it the Gym Annex controversy or Tent City. An unattractive deal that pitted students against the university, the media against the university, the government against the university. Little did he know, when in a preliminary Board of Trustees meeting where people were passing around petitions and talking about sacred ground, the decision and its aftermath would come to rest on Schwartz's shoulders.