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THE OAK GROVE CAMPUS
1931-1955 – The Move to the Oak Grove Campus
By 1926 it was increasingly
obvious that the junior college was outgrowing its first home at Central High
School. Enrollment at the college had risen from 114 to 310 by 1931 and the high
school enrollment also increased markedly. North Central’s initial accreditation
of the junior college had recommended that the college develop its own separate
location. The most plausible location was the Oak Grove Sanitarium, just
northeast of the high school.
In 1920 the Flint Board of
Education had purchased the Oak Grove Sanitarium and the 60 acres of adjacent
land for the building of a new high school. The land had once belonged to
Henry Crapo, governor of Michigan from 1865-68, who had planned to build a
mansion on the property. Instead, he sold the land to the Oak Grove Corporation
which erected a sanitarium for the treatment of nervous and mental diseases. The
first buildings were constructed in 1891 and were described in an 1896
publication as “homelike surroundings for people of refined tastes, accustomed
to the luxuries and conveniences of life.”
After the Flint School Board
purchased the property the original buildings were kept and used as dormitories
for teachers. The Oak Grove Teachers Club, as it was called, lasted until 1932.
In the Oak Grove buildings the college shared space with the Mott Programs, the
Community Music Association, Flint Youth Bureau, the University of Michigan
Extension programs, the Teacher’s Credit Union, the school radio station, the
Veterans Institute, the Red Cross, a variety of school administrative offices
and the Adult High School.
The decision to move the college
to its own location was long in coming. The initial location of the junior
college in the high school was intended to be temporary. However, financial
constraints kept the dream of a separate building just out of reach during the
1920s. Finally, in 1931, after Leland Lamb became superintendent, the
decision was made to move the college to the east wing of the Oak Grove complex
of buildings. By the fall of 1931 nearly all of the junior college’s activities
were in the new building. Physical education activities remained in the high
school and chemistry laboratories weren’t moved until a new chemistry lab was
built in a remodeled barn in 1935. Until 1938 the college had two libraries, a
newly created one in the Oak Grove buildings and one that remained in Central
High School. In 1938, a well-organized book walk involving 440 students, moved
the remaining 9,000 books to the Oak Grove campus. In 1940 the Friends of the
Junior College Library was founded with Elsie Munroe as faculty sponsor.
The move to its new location
helped to establish the junior college as a separate entity apart from the high
school. As students transferred from the junior college to the Ann Arbor campus
their success began to create a strong and distinct academic image for the
growing institution.
A full sense of independence would
have to wait until the move to the Court Street Campus and the separation from
the Board of Education in the 1960s.
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Extracted and transcribed by Geraldine Waite from
a book by Paul Rozycki, A Clearer Image The 75 Year History of Mott
Community College (Paul Rozycki: Flint, MI, January 1998)
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