The Ohio State University in the Sixties: The Unraveling of the Old Order

ISBN-13: 9780814253625 Publisher: Ohio State University Press Publication date: 08/30/2016 Series: Trillium Books Edition description: 1 Pages: 454 Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d) At 5:30 p.m. on May 6, 1970, an embattled Ohio State University President Novice G. Fawcett took the unprecedented step of closing down the university. Despite the presence of more than 1,500 armed highway patrol officers, Ohio National Guardsmen, deputy sheriffs, and Columbus city police, university and state officials feared they could not maintain order in the face of growing student protests. Students, faculty, and staff were ordered to leave; administrative offices, classrooms, and laboratories were closed. The campus was sealed off. Never in the first one hundred years of the university's existence had such a drastic step been necessary. Just a year earlier the campus seemed immune to such disruptions. President Nixon considered it safe enough to plan an address at commencement. Yet a