 1938-1942: Still Bigger
The School of Commerce expands its offerings considerably with specialized technical curricula. It establishes programs in secretarial science, domestic arts and science, and hospital administration. |
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 1939: Welcome Dean Vanderblue
Homer Vanderblue becomes the fifth dean of the School of Commerce. Vanderblue proves to be a successful academic and administrative leader, keeping the school functioning during the resource shortages associated with World War II when most business schools curtailed their operations or suspended instruction entirely.
Under Dean Vanderblue, the school shifts away from technical specialization toward a broader managerial education. To accomplish this shift—which would take years to complete—Vanderblue introduces the “rotating chairs” system for academic department heads, thus sidestepping department rigidity. He recruits faculty sympathetic to his goals and ideals of “liberal business education.”
Vanderblue also works to bridge the fiscal gap between what the school generates for the university and what it earns to meet its expenses. Among other things, Vanderblue proposes raising faculty salaries, which had declined during the depression, and constructing new buildings in Evanston and Chicago. Vanderblue admits that to retain the best faculty, he has to draw upon loyalty to Northwestern by “playing on the ‘I love Evanston’ key” to retain the best senior professors, something he is able to do in many cases. |
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 World War II
The School of Commerce, in cooperation with Price, Waterhouse & Co., establishes an accounting program for women. Each training session lasts three months and enrolls nearly 60 women.
Cecil Gillespie, a senior member of the Accounting Department, creates a cost control system for the U.S. Navy.
As with schools across the U.S., the war adversely impacts enrollment at Northwestern. Registration at the School of Commerce dropped from about 8,200 in 1938 to about 3,200 in 1943-1944. In addition, more than a third of the school’s faculty take leaves of absence to serve in the military or government during the war. |
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 1941: The War EffortJames R. Hawkinson, a Northwestern University graduate and faculty member in the Department of Marketing, organizes, staffs and directs the School of Commerce in the U.S. Army’s G.I. University located in England. |
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1942: A Name Change
The School of Commerce restructures its undergraduate program, expanding it from two years to four years in duration and replacing the existing curriculum (which had been offered in conjunction with the university’s College of Liberal Arts) with one administered solely by the commerce school. The decision occurred after administrators studied national trends in business education. The move enhanced both the commerce curriculum and the school’s financial resources derived from tuition. At the same time, the school changed the degree associated with the program from the Bachelor of Science in Commerce to the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration to align better with market expectations. |
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 1943: A Focus on Health
In cooperation with the university’s medical school, the School of Commerce establishes a program in hospital administration that is headed by Dr. Malcolm T. MacEachern, a Canadian physician who would come to be considered “the father of modern hospital administration.” Located on the Chicago campus, the program grants a Master of Science in Hospital Administration, which later includes a bachelor-level sequence.
With the establishment of the Navy V-12 program in July, approximately 1,200 Navy and Marine Corps officer candidates arrive in Evanston for collegiate training in the liberal arts and business. Between 1943 and 1946, 2,338 students went through this program. According to one official, this influx inspires a new nickname for the university: the “good ship Northwestern.” |
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1944: Enrollment of Women Up
Women now make up nearly 60 percent of the full-time student population, a fact partially attributable to the war and the enlistment of many male students in military service. The conclusion of hostilities, however, results in a quadrupling of the school’s registration. By 1949, full-time student enrollment is more than 2,500 (compared with 324 in 1944), as veterans return home to pursue college business education with the support of the G.I. Bill. |
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 1945: New Hires
The School of Commerce steps away from narrow specialization with the hiring of business historians Richard C. Overton and Howard F. Bennett and other faculty who further developed the case method, business policy courses, and a statistics sequence on a more formal basis. Meanwhile, the school faces increasing competition from tuition-free community colleges in the area—increasing the need to provide a superior education.
Business executive Foster Glendale McGaw donates some $17,500 between 1943 and 1949 for the hospital administration program. McGaw proposes that his company, American Hospital Supply Corporation, “might invite from the four or five principal South American countries one outstanding high school student to come to Northwestern for a business course, at our expense, with the idea of having them learn about the United States, learn about our business methods, and specifically learn about our company and its line.” That student, according to McGaw, would work part-time for the corporation while at Northwestern, and upon graduating, “we would send them back to their own country as our representative[s] to do business with the hospitals.” General Robert W. Johnson and Johnson & Johnson Co. also support the thriving hospital administration program with a gift of $90,000 between 1945 and 1950. |
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1946: In Demand
During the immediate postwar years, the school’s faculty numbers fewer than 40, forcing the school to turn away thousands of applicants. As a result, Dean Vanderblue anticipates that commerce professors will surely “face angry mobs of doting mothers whose sons are refused admission.” Still, enrollment expands rapidly, though the percentage of female students in the full-time programs declines from 58 percent in 1944 to less than 5 percent in 1947. |
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1947: Numbers Up
Enrollment jumps from approximately 3,500 in 1945 to more than 12,000, an increase of nearly 300 percent. Attendance on the Evanston campus jumps from 46 to nearly 2,200, an increase of approximately 550 percent, and the graduate enrollment doubles as well.
A postwar planning report recommends that the Graduate Division be consolidated on the Chicago campus; the academic quality of the student body be improved; and a core graduate curriculum, entirely separate from the undergraduate program, be developed. Another report in 1949 makes similar recommendations.
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