FEATURE STORY — Jan./Feb. 2006

Harvard on the Rocks

Some 75,000 students passed through NAVY PIER, the Chicago Undergraduate Division of the University of Illinois

BY John Spizzirri

When World War II ended, thousands of men and women returned to the states with uncertain prospects. The G.I. Bill, however, created options for veterans by offering unemployment compensation; low-interest loans for homes, farms and small businesses; and free tuition to a college or vocational school. In June 1946, the University of Illinois announced plans to open a two-year branch in Chicago on Navy Pier to accommodate the growing number of veterans eager to attend college. Three months later, enrollment in the two-year program had reached 4,000; three-quarters of the students were veterans.

To accommodate these students, the City of Chicago offered the University 247,000 square feet of space at Navy Pier. Then-provost Coleman R. Griffith recommended a four-year lease at a cost to the University of $86,000 a year. Immediately, work began to reconfigure the 30-year-old Pier—which had been a naval training base since 1942—into an educational facility.

The Chicago Undergraduate Division of the University of Illinois was dedicated on Oct. 21, 1946, with Governor Dwight H. Green serving as principal speaker. Other prominent guests included Mayor Edward Kelly and U of I President George Stoddard. An article in the Alumni News noted that “the most amazing thing about the new U of I branch is its growth from idea to fact in only 90 days.”

The undergraduate program at Navy Pier focused on a small number of concentrations within four colleges: Liberal Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Commerce and Business Administration, and Physical Education. “Harvard on the rocks,” as some students called Navy Pier, was larger (upon its opening) than many other established universities. According to Alumni News, the school was four times larger than Colgate University in New York.

Naval Captain Charles Claire Caveny, administrative officer of the Navy Training Schools at Navy Pier, was appointed dean of the undergraduate division. Previous accommodations, once inhabited by his trainees, were restructured to meet the needs of new college students. Former Pier English professor Bernard Kogan wrote in 1954 that the Navy galley was converted into the cafeteria and “the Navy mess hall [was turned] into a giant library containing the ‘largest reading room in Illinois.’ One of the Navy brigs [jails]...provided space for the thousands of student lockers.”

Life on Navy Pier was not without its difficulties: There were long distances to walk between classes, problems with overcrowding and distractions associated with the bustling commerce of Lake Michigan. But these were sometimes interrupted by visits by dignitaries such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Queen Elizabeth.

Despite excitement over the opening of the branch, students had few options once they had completed the two-year program. Expectations that they would enroll at the Urbana-Champaign campus were diminished by the fact that it was overcrowded.

Amid cries and protests for a four-year undergraduate program in Chicago, the University of Illinois at Circle Campus opened in 1965. In the end, some 75,000 students passed through the Chicago Undergraduate Division of the U of I-Navy Pier—as that four-year lease eventually exten-ded to nearly 20 years.