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Seymour, Thaddeus (1928-2019)

Twelfth President of Rollins College

Thaddeus Seymour ‘82HAL ‘90H served as president of Rollins from 1978 to1990.He began his presidency by setting a goal for the College’s 1985 Centennial: “To know ourselves and be known by others as the finest small college in the Southeast, standing among the finest small colleges in the country.” His administration returned the College to its liberal arts roots, strengthened academic programs, increased the endowment, and built a much-needed new library. He achieved these goals while also “matching hard work with fun,” and was well known a s a storyteller and magician. He was also known for reinstating Fox Day, a College tradition that had been discontinued during the 1970s. “Thad” and his wife, Polly Gnagy Seymour ’85 ‘90H, also became beloved members of the local community, recognized for their service to the Winter Park Public Library, Habitat for Humanity, and many other local initiatives.

Thaddeus Seymour was born in New York City on June 29, 1928, and grew up in Greenwich Village. His father, Whitney North Seymour ‘ 83 H, was an attorney and civil rights advocate who served in the Hoover administration and later became president of the American Bar Association. Thaddeus attended Princeton University and then the University of California, Berkeley. He earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, where he studied eighteenth-century English literature.

Dr. Seymour began his career as an English professor at Dartmouth College in 1954 and became Dean of the College in 1959. Although he was a young man, he became known as “Dad Thad” at Dartmouth, where he served for another ten years. In 1969 he became the president of Wabash College in Indiana, a position he held for nine years before coming to Rollins.

One of President Seymour’s first acts at Rollins was to appoint a Planning Committee, chaired by philosophy professor Daniel De Nicola. The committee’s final 500-page report, developed over eighteen months, was to provide the framework for the College’s agenda during the next five years.

In the following years, Rollins renewed its focus on its liberal arts mission. A major in classics was established in the mid-1980s, and the Master of Liberal Studies program was introduced at the Hamilton Holt School in 1987.

President Seymour ’s emphasis on academic excellence was essential to a number of other program changes at Rollins. The curriculum of the School of Continuing Education was revised, and the evening degree program was renamed the Hamilton Holt School. The Crummer Graduate School of Business received accreditation from the AACSB (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) for the first time in 1985. By the end of the Seymour presidency, U.S. News & World Report recognized Rollins as one of the best regional institutions in the South.

The College became stronger financially as well as academically under President Seymour’s leadership. A five-year capital campaign raised $36.3 million for buildings, scholarships, equipment, and other initiatives. The College’s endowment had tripled to over $30 million by 1989.

Rollins was also transformed physically during these years. Two new buildings were constructed during the Seymour administration: Olin Library ( 1985 ) and the Cornell Hall for the Social Sciences (1988). President Seymour was dedicated to preserving historic campus spaces and oversaw a major renovation of Pinehurst Cottage, the College’s oldest building. He also rededicated the Walk of Fame, originally created by President Hamilton Holt in 1929.

After leaving the presidency in 1990, Dr. Seymour returned to teaching as a member of the English Department, where he created a new course, Writing About Rollins, in which students explored aspects of the College’s history. He also surprised and delighted the campus by becoming a master learner in the Science Community Year program in 1991 , studying pre-calculus and biology alongside freshmen students. Math and science were not his strongest subjects, but as he put it, “I want to see if there’s still a tune left in the old violin.”

Thaddeus Seymour taught at Rollins until 2008, the year of his 80th birthday. These years fulfilled “a desire to serve my students well, to do justice to them, to teach as well as I can, have it be a rewarding experience for them and for me. . . you know, that’s what I hoped for when I started out to be a teacher. And then I say playfully to my colleagues, if you can figure out a way to replicate that in your career, what a wonderful time you’re going to have. And that’s what I’ve had.”

Throughout his career and retirement, he and his wife, Polly, were active members of the Winter Park community and served many local organizations. The Polly Seymour New Leaf Bookstore at the Winter Park Public Library and a Habitat for Humanity home dedicated to the Seymours are just two of the many ways the community showed its appreciation for their years of service. In 2016, the mayor of Winter Park proclaimed May 1 Thaddeus Seymour Day and presented the Seymours with a key to the city.

In his book Rollins College Centennial History, College Historian Jack C. Lane noted that “The Seymour presidency proved to be a turning point in Rollins’ history. At a time when the college community was somewhat adrift, or at best standing still, Seymour instilled in the College a revived enthusiasm and provided a sense of continuity and gave it a new sense of direction.”

At Rollins, the Thaddeus Seymour Award for Community Engagement recognizes a staff member each year for exceptional community service, and a wing in the new Lakeside Neighborhood, with a focus on community, health, and well-being, will be named in honor of President Seymour.

Transcripts of oral history interviews with Thaddeus Seymour are available at the Rollins Oral History page. To explore campus landmarks with Dr. Seymour, follow this historic campus tour.

– D. Moore, Archival Specialist

Smith, Rhea Marsh (1905-1991)

History Professor

A native to Texas, Rhea Marsh Smith remained in his home state from birth, April 19, 1905, until his completion of his undergraduate studies at Southern Methodist University (S.M.U), where he received a Bachelors of Arts degree in both English and History. Upon graduation, fellowships were offered to him in both areas of study, but he chose to work under a history professor at S.M.U. After a period as a fellow and instructor at the University, Smith became a lecturer at the University of Texas and then moved to New Jersey, where he graduated with a Master of Arts degree.

On invitation from Dr. Holt, Smith joined the Rollins College Faculty as an assistant professor of history in 1930. Just two years after this appointment, he met his future wife, Dorothy Lockhart, when she came to Winter Park to assist her friend, actress Annie Russell, with the opening of the Annie Russell Theatre. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania a few years later, he joined the Rollins faculty full time. There, Smith taught under his field of concentration, the history of Spain, an area in which he first became interested in while studying at the graduate summer school of the University of Pennsylvania in 1932. ^[1] Professor Smith continued to teach at Rollins until the outbreak of World War II. Smith traveled to Washington D.C., where he served the armed forces from 1942-1945 as a military instructor. Following the war, he joined the faculty of Biarritz American University in France to teach history. He rejoined the Rollins College faculty after a year, where he took on the positions of acting dean and assistant to the president. While holding these offices, Smith traveled to Spain and Portugal, where he continued his research and authored the book, The Day of the Liberals in Spain (1938). Additionally, he appeared in several productions, including There’s Always Juliet, Hedda Gabler, Thirteenth Chair, Candle-Light, In Times of Passion, and Private Lives. For his devotion and services to the College, Rollins awarded Smith the Holt Metal in recognition of a person who has, “in some way shown that any man anywhere, guided by truth and armed with honesty, can find his own destiny.” ^[2] Upon his retirement in 1972, the Rollins College Board of Trustees elevated him to the status of Professor Emeritus of History. Even after his retirement from the College, however, Smith remained close to those who worked there, as he kept active by continuing his research at the Rollins College Archives.

Rhea Marsh Smith died in Winter Park on Saturday, November 2nd, 1991. A memorial service was held at Knowles Memorial Chapel at Rollins College. Smith’s passion for history led him to leave a generous bequest to both Rollins College and the Winter Park Public Library. His endowment supports the Winter Park History Collection & Archives, preservation supplies for the materials in the collection, and the Rhea Marsh and Dorothy Lockhart Smith Winter Park Research Grant, a $3,000 annual grant in which encourages scholarly research on some aspect of Winter Park.

– Alia Alli

Stone, Wendell Cornell (1901-1976)

Professor Emeritus and Dean of College

Wendell Cornell Stone, son of Oliver Wendell and Ida Van Rensselaer Stone, originated in Ontario, California. He received his preparatory education from Ontario Elementary School, from 1908 to 1915; and Chaffee High School, from 1915 until 1919; before attending Pomona College in Claremont. As an undergraduate he studied and worked in various professions to support the fees for his education. Stone waited tables, worked on a pipeline, labored in a cannery and a box factory, fought forest fires, served as a jailor and professional pallbearer, and worked in a hotel. In 1923 Stone graduated from Pomona with his Artium Baccalaureatus and served as a teaching fellow in logic for the University of California at Berkeley from 1924 to 1926. During the following two years, he worked as a day resident assistant at a children’s home for juvenile delinquents in New Haven, Connecticut. Stone received his doctoral degree from Yale University in New Haven, which he attended from 1928 to 1931. His dissertation (entitled “The Principle of Contradiction”) primarily concerned the philosophy of science and logic. Stone also served as a reader, and then as an instructor, on philosophy at Yale until he graduated. He also had connections to the Roxbury Tutoring School. While in college, Stone joined organizations such as the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (R.O.T.C), Sigma Tau fraternity, the debate club, and the dramatics club. From 1931 to 1932 he taught philosophy at Larson Junior College, before becoming an assistant professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Stone married Marita Alice Stueve, with whom he had two sons: Frank and Alex.

In 1933, Stone came to Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, where he served as an assistant professor. Two years later, he received a promotion to associate professor and, in 1941 Stone became a full professor of philosophy, and chairman of the division of human relations. From 1943 until 1952 Stone served as dean of the college. He also functioned as the educational director for the Army’s Specialized Training and Reassignment (S.T.A.R) unit from 1943 to 1944, and as a professor for the Rollins Institute for General Studies from 1962 until 1964. Much beloved by students and faculty, and recognized for excellence in teaching, Stone received from Rollins a Doctor of Laws degree in 1942, the Hamilton Holt Medal and the Omicron Delta Kappa award in 1970, in addition to his election as Professor Emeritus. He remained at Rollins for thirty-seven years in which time he espoused the importance of the “good life,” stating that, “man is free only when he is allowed to manifest his capacity for rationality.” ^[3] Additionally, Stone held memberships to scholarly organizations such as O.D.K., Phi Delta Theta, Pi Gamma Mu, the American Philosophical Society, and the Florida Philosophical Association (as president). Stone died at the Winter Park Towers Retirement Home on October 5, 1976 following a long illness.

– Angelica Garcia

Straughter, Washington (1858-1930)

African American Pioneer

Washington Straughter, the son of two African Americans from Virginia, was born in 1858 in Florida. The Straughters were one of the earliest African American families to inhabit Winter Park. Although most African Americans who settled in Winter Park were from North Florida, South Georgia or North Carolina, Washington’s family resided in Virginia. ^[4] Most of the family moved to the Lake Maitland and Winter Park Town area. While living in the west side of Winter Park, also known as Hannibal Square, Washington earned the nickname “buddy” from neighborhood friends. ^[5] Washington began his career in the 1920s. A land grant allowed him to obtain land in west Winter Park. The grant allowed him to purchase more land for groves and the raising of cattle and horses. ^[6] Washington built a two-story home located on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Douglas streets in 1927. ^[7] Two story houses were uncommon in African American neighborhoods. Most homes were wooden, single story homes with a simple gable roof design. ^[8] Washington married Edith in 1884. Edith taught herself to read and write. ^[9] She helped Washington in this regard when necessary. Washington Straughter died in 1930.

– Kerem K. Rivera