Thomas A. Nevitt – Faculty Member, Industrial Arts Education Departmental History

THOMAS A. NEVITT

INDUSTRIAL ARTS – 1956

                Some of these comments of the early days of the Industrial Arts Department may stand correcting as they represent events that were related to me. The Department of Industrial Arts had its beginning in 1945 when Ralph W.E. Bowers persuaded Dean Maxim Doucet to initiate the department. Supervised by the State Department of Education, Ralph Bowers had been an itinerant teacher hired to teach Trade School teachers courses which were required under the Smith-Hughes Act. This program allowed trade-skilled persons could teach without a college degree if they enrolled in teaching methods courses.

                Industrial art courses were originally taught in the agriculture laboratory. The shop classroom of Professor Dugas in Parker Hall was shared with Professor Bowers (I was told shortly after arriving in Lafayette). Professor Bowers hired Paul Van Horn in 1947 to assist him in teaching courses.  Paul Van Horn was teaching in the Tulsa, OK, school system.  Van Horn was a distant relative of Mr. Bower, who knew about Van Horn’s qualifications.  In 1948, the third teacher hired was Ennis Rush, who had been teaching in the New Orleans school system.  Mr. Bowers secured much of the teaching equipment from war surplus; however, some new equipment and tools were added over the years. Shortly after the end of WW II, Bowers was scouring the State Surplus Items for tools to be used in the department; eventually, he secured a surplus building which had been used for Army Tank Maintenance during the war. The first graduate of the department was Charles Bernard who, after graduation, taught industrial arts teachers in St. Martin Parish as one of the first industrial arts programs in the Acadiana area; later, he became the fourth member of the department.

                Charles Bernard taught elementary school students in the Hamilton Laboratory school where he supervised student teaching for industrial arts majors. Prof. Bowers had initiated a course for elementary education majors, which also was taught by Ennis Rush. Mr. Bernard also taught the course for elementary education majors and developed it into a very important course, as it enabled elementary teachers to introduce hands-on experiences when they taught in the various schools. He used the Hamilton School laboratory, a temporary building adjacent to the main building. Unfortunately, some years later, the College of Education Elementary Education advisors cut this course from elementary education majors when that curriculum was reorganized. Professors in education have little understanding of the merits of industrial arts or similar courses; their education usually includes little mention on the merits of hands-on experiences. Industrial arts or similar types of education of educators are taught that learning takes place through concrete experiences as well as abstract experiences. Academic educators have always emphasized abstract learning; thus, they have little understanding of industrial arts education. Consequently, in reorganization of any education curriculum, this course is one of the first to be eliminated.

About three years after I was hired, Mr. Van Horn succeeded the ailing Mr. Bowers as head of the Department of Industrial Arts. Peter LeBlanc was teaching in St. Martin Parish when he was hired as a result of an expansion of the department and a reduction of the duties of Professor Van Horn as department head.  Peter LeBlanc resigned after a year, and Richard Bonnette, a graduate of SLI Industrial Arts, was hired. When Ralph Bowers retired, Paul Van Horn hired Robert Peacock, a teacher from California, to teach the metals area. He stayed several years before resigning to return to California. About this time, I became department head and hired Michael Patin from St. Martin Parish to teach metal technology; later, Roland Jenkins, from Lafayette Parish, to teach the electronics area; and James Comeaux to teach in the woodworking area when Mr. Rush retired.  When Mr.Van Horn retired, I hired Joseph Pons to teach automobile technology, and Thomas Landry to teach engineering drawing and industrial arts for elementary teachers. Dr. Jenkins hired Gabriel Spreyer to teach metals courses when Mike Patin left. I had recommended that all faculty work toward a doctorate, but only Roland Jenkins completed the doctoral program.  He received his terminal degree from the University of Arkansas.

At the urging of the Louisiana Newspaper Association members courses in printing were added in 1955. The first teacher in the program was Charles Thomas, a graduate of Stout Institute which was a highly regarded school for educating industrial arts teachers. Mr. Thomas, however, resigned at the end of his first year, saying he did not like the climate. I was the second teacher of printing.  During the time, I was teaching at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, IN, I was at a national printing teachers meeting when a teacher from Arizona told me that he had turned down a position in Louisiana. I wrote to see if the position had been filled; it had, however, the next year I was offered the position and accepted. When I arrived, the printing laboratory was not equipped for teaching printing experiences of the 1950’s. Mr. Bowers had relied on the experiences of some country weekly publishers for recommendations to equip the printing shop. The most worthwhile item was the Linotype. Other pieces of equipment included a proofpress, much handset type, a hand-fed 24×36 flat-bed letterpress which was similar to the one that I had operated in 1939-40 in a technical high school printshop. I was confronted with the dilemma that faced the first teacher hired: either find some way to furnish the shop with modern equipment or resign.

I had graduated from a vocational-technical high school, and later taught there, where four printing teachers collaborated to do production printing for the public school system. After completing my apprenticeship in the composing room of  the Louisville Courier-Journal, I matriculated to the University of Kentucky. While attending the university I worked in the printshop as a Linotype operator. I graduated with distinction in the production administration curriculum in the college of commerce.  While teaching in the Louisville, KY public school system, I was able to attend night school at the Indiana University.  In the summers, I attended classes on the campus at Bloomington and earned a masters degree in Education with a major in administration and a minor in vocational education. As soon as I received my MS degree, I was employed at Indiana State Teachers College at Terre Haute.  I had the dual title of assistant professor and director of printing at Indiana State where we did production printing in addition to teaching classes. With this previous teaching experience, I decided to pursue  production printing to earn equipment for the shop rather than to resign.  I transferred to SLI from Indiana State as he liked what I had taught during his first year there. (After he graduated from SLI, I suggested to Lester Goldman that he should work toward an advanced degree. He obtained a doctorate from the University of Florida and was later dean of a community college.) With his help as a student aid, some printing production was started in addition to my teaching the printing classes. Thus, I taught a full load of classes and did production printing while not in class. Over the first several years, numerous student aids (after taking courses in printing) assisted in production. Some majors in other disciplines worked as student aids to do labor which did not require skill.

We printed letterheads, envelopes, and similar types of business printing, including the schedule of classes on the newspaper press.  SLI purchased a large folding machine in order to fold the pages, which were printed directly from type set on the Linotype.  Also purchased was an automatic letterpress called the Heidelberg, which was used to number forms, etc. We did not do the material that is classified today as copying; that was done in Martin Hall on mimeograph machines, which was the only printing done on campus before my arrival. When I obtained a sabbatical to complete my doctorate course work, one of the students, Thomas Quoyeser, who had worked as a student aid and graduated with an industrial arts major, carried on the printing production with other student aid help. However, Thomas Quoyeser was not hired to assist me when I returned.

When Mr. Van Horn wanted the original printing area as a classroom and with the need for expansion of the printing production, the printshop was moved into another surplus I building which had previously housed some engineering laboratories. The Athletic offices were on the second floor, and the printshop occupied the first floor. Shortly thereafter, about 1962,  a production worker was hired when Senator Williams of Crowley said he would secure funds for a worker if George Hoffman of Crowley were hired. We started to train “Boonie” Hoffman in offset printing, as his previous experience was in letterpress printing.  Later, Glen Laurent of Rayne was hired to do some of the letterpress on the Heidelberg. Dan Tribe and Raymond Landry were at the Progress Print Shop when the newspaper press that was used to print the Vermilion broke down. The two of them would bring the lead forms set on the Linotypes in the trunk of Dan’s automobile to print the Vermilion.

The Progress Print Shop was a subsidiary of the Daily Advertiser at that time. The SLI printshop had continued to do some work, including the schedule of classes, on the newspaper letterpress press which was part of the original equipment. A decision was made to hire Dan Tribe in January of 1967 and Raymond Landry in September 1967 to print the newspaper among other jobs. They, too, had been letterpress printers, and I set about to train them in the newer offset processes. Gerald Tribe was hired as a Linotype operator in January of 1968. Raymond Landry also started the first quick duplicating part of the printing when that process was needed. Shortly thereafter, the mimeographing area in Martin Hall was closed, and the workers sent to the printshop to be trained to help with quick duplicating. An AB Dick offset press and a large 20×25, a Heidelberg, offset printing press were purchased, which enabled the printshop to do longer run and more precision jobs. This progression had taken some twelve years.

With the help of Alton Broussard, who was teaching  journalism, a 17×22 rollfed press was purchased to run the Vermilion. An automatic folder-collator was added to put together several pages, some sixteen pages in total. The Athletic offices were moved, and the printshop occupied the second floor. Here was located the first computerized typesetting which Gerald Tribe operated as the Linotype became less a factor in type composition.

In 1974 an unfortunate fire just about destroyed all that we had worked so hard to accomplish. We did not know it then, as we had no idea how the fire was started, but I speculate now that a faulty fluorescent light ballast had smoldered against the cellotex ceiling and ignited the pine flooring on the second floor over a period of hours.

Cellotex is treated paper-based, and the flourescent light was nailed flush against the ceiling. I left the building on Holy Saturday about 4 P.M. and was awakened about 12:00 midnight to be told that the printshop was on fire. After being out of activity for about a year, the printshop was relocated in 1976 to its present metal building on Coliseum Road.. Some new equipment was added from the insurance payment, including an advanced computer typesetting system and a larger production type camera; however, we no longer printed the school newspaper.

A few years later I retired and returned as a visitor to see, regretfully, the elimination of the printing courses and then the elimination of the industrial arts part of the education process. The Engineering College took over the technology students, and this increased their enrollment by a great number. Before I retired, with all of the very qualified teachers, the department evolved into the Department of Industrial Education and Technology. The department was recognized throughout Louisiana as one of the best, if not the best, departments for teaching industrial arts students as well as offering courses for vocational technical teachers for the Acadiana Area and for technology education for many students who entered industry. A body of knowledge exists which is called industrial technology. This type of education calls for college level teachers to be trained, not unlike any other teachers, and exists in the elementary school and in college. This type of education will prevent the impossible task of telling students in the twelfth grade that they must work and earn a living. This body of knowledge has its beginning in the elementary school and progresses to college level courses, but industrial technology is not the same as engineering technology.

A student should begin the industrial technology curriculum when he enters college. Thus, the dominant part of education printing courses and industrial arts of the wonderful students with whom the industrial arts faculty and I had been privileged to work and all that I had worked for over twenty-five years were for all intents and purposes gone. It is ironic that the printing processes that I had updated at Indiana State have enabled Indianapolis printing industry to hire many of that school’s graduates, and that was what I had hoped to accomplish at USL for Louisiana. The help that the Louisiana Newspaper Publishers Association had promised never materialized. An effort by Mr. Fletcher and Dean Riehl to expand USL industrial arts education among other courses to the former Navy facilities at New Iberia would have been helpful, but the expansion fell through. The old Sears building now the Lafayette Parish building at one time was sought out for improved facilities. To the credit of  Dr. Ray Authement the original intention of the now Louisiana Technical College was to have a working relation with that school.  If that attempt had been successful, the community college concept would have been implemented 25 years ago. Many of these attempts at increasing practical arts education were thwarted by petty politics on the campus and at the State level. These thoughts and recollections are sometimes distorted as untrained workers, but I train my workers to various degrees determined by how long they stay in our employment. We are not as well equipped as the USL printshop, but we do all types of business printing, newsletters, booklets, and perfect bound books (soft cover) among other types of printing. If you need printing, stop by or just come by to say hello. We continue to be a source of knowledge as we get inquiries daily about some printing problems or printing terms that people do not understand.