The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 88, July 1984 - April, 1985 Page: 339
476 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
Frantz put it, "I felt that she had made the right choice" (p. ix). But
soon certain University regents disputed this judgment. After a first
draft, which revealed accomplishments as well as mistakes and scan-
dals, they were displeased. After two more revisions the result was still
unsatisfactory, so much so that President Rogers decommissioned
Frantz. Consequently he decided to fashion his own narrative of the
University with all its beauty spots and warts. It would be "the story
of a living, evolving institution" from his vantage point, "selective
rather than definitive" (p. xi). His final product is The Forty-Acre
Follies.
While covering all aspects of University of Texas life since 1881, this
work should not be considered an institutional study-at least not the
sort that previous historians have written. Instead, the Follies has the
stamp of Joe Frantz on it, his insight, his inimitable style and wit,
his irreverent admiration and subtle condemnation. Discussing Uni-
versity administration, he writes: "UT presidents--or the equivalent
thereof-have lived up to the academic cliche that deans are chosen
for one year and last a lifetime; presidents are chosen for a lifetime
and are gone in five years. . . . The turnover has been too rapid for
continuity and resembles the hiring and firing methods of high-pressure
advertising agencies or old-time rotating Methodist pastorates" (p.. 4-
5). In regard to selecting faculty: "I have never known a department at
the University of Texas that hired a person with the idea of 'What's
the difference, it's only for a year or two.' We are akin to the girl who
never accepts a date with any boy she doesn't think she would like to
marry" (pp. 28-29). Concerning a UT-Arkansas football game in 1905,
Frantz notes that "the Arkansas fans entertained themselves by stoning
the visitors. Fan behavior in Fayetteville has shown little progress in
the ensuing seventy-eight years" (p. 57). In his introductory paragraph
to a chapter entitled "Pursuit and Persecution," he observes: "The
University of Texas has the worst reputation of any academic institu-
tion in the United States for being ridden, even overwhelmed, by poli-
tics-and it is deserved. I've spent nearly half a century trying to
figure out why we have that reputation. I haven't come to a satisfactory
conclusion yet" (p. 71). In assessing the actions of specific University
VIPs, Frantz states that John R. Silber "climbed on the escalator to-
ward the administration top, first by becoming chairman of the De-
partment of Philosophy, where he turned a department that had been
distinguished by its anonymity into a quarrelsome gaggle whose differ-
ences spilled out all over the campus" (p. 276); Frank C. Erwin, as
chairman of the regents, "was easily available, always. I could wait a339
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 88, July 1984 - April, 1985, periodical, 1984/1985; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101210/m1/387/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.