ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 14, 1997 TAG: 9701140099
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: Reporter's Notebook
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE
Selling at a healthy clip around Blacksburg is a new history called "Images & Reflections: Virginia Tech, 1872-1997," which sheds light on a relatively ignored bit of information: The university has had 16 official presidencies - not 14.
Although other history books take note of these incumbencies, the official university "president count" does not. Clara Cox thinks this ought to change. She's the member of the university relations staff who spent the better part of last year researching the new book.
"I was rather surprised to find out that we had two more presidents," Cox said. "[Scott] Shipp, who was third president, was only president for about 13 days."
And John Lee Buchanan held the job twice, both times for brief months. "And we only count Buchanan once," Cox said.
The Civil War was not long over - and political emotions quite high - when the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College was founded in October 1872. Charles Landon Carter Minor launched the school with a faculty of three.
He also had to defend his concept of the college. He believed it should remain an institution with a military regiment. Gen. James H. Lane (nicknamed "Gamecock" by his students), thought the new college ought to be a full-fledged military school. They settled the matter with a fistfight at a faculty meeting, an event which also launched the decline of President Minor's administration.
The next president, Buchanan, stayed four months. He was a native of Southwest Virginia, a former president of Emory & Henry College, and apparently no match for continued political turmoil in the state. During his tenure, somebody suggested that perhaps the new college ought to be turned into an asylum.
Then came Lt. Col. Scott Shipp, the gentleman who has gone down as the "uncounted" Virginia Tech president. He lasted 13 days. "He realized during his first meeting with the executive committee that the board and not the new faculty would handle details of the college's organization," Cox writes. Then, he resigned.
This turn of events may comes as little surprise to anyone familiar with the politics of higher education.
Shipp, who came to Blacksburg from his job as commandant of the Virginia Military Institute's Corps of Cadets, returned to Lexington. He became that school's second superintendent a decade later. He has gone down in Virginia history as the man who led the young VMI cadets into the Civil War battle of New Market in 1864.
Cox says she can see why Shipp has been overlooked in Virginia Tech's official president count; the only thing he ever did that affected the school was to resign. Still, she has her opinions.
"I think Tech should count him, because he's had an illustrious career," Cox said. "He was the second superintendent of VMI, he led the cadets in the Battle of New Market, he was on the board of the Naval Academy, and he was on the board of the United States Military Academy."
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