Great Mouthpiece

If U.S. college presidents had ever had a union, the man at the head of it would undoubtedly have been 72-year-old Guy Everett Snavely. As a matter of fact, for the past 17 years he has been running the nearest thing to a union the presidents have--the powerful Association of American Colleges. Last week, as he announced his retirement as executive director in favor of President Theodore A. Distler of Franklin and Marshall College, Guy Snavely could, as much as anyone else, lay claim to making the A.A.C. the Great Mouthpiece of U.S. colleges.

Born in his grandfather's farmhouse on the battlefield of Antietam ("The battle was over, of course"), Snavely entered Johns Hopkins University at 15, eventually wound up with a Ph.D. in Romance languages. In 1937, after serving as president of Birmingham-Southern College, he took the top administrative post of A.A.C. Since then, A.A.C.'s membership has grown from 495 to over 702--and its influence has grown accordingly.

In 17 years, its various committees and commissions have formulated policy on everything from academic freedom to the effect of the draft. It has tried to stimulate interest in the fine arts by organizing 2,585 programs on campuses across the U.S. It has sponsored lectures by distinguished foreigners, has set up teacher retirement and annuity programs at scores of colleges. It has made sweeping studies of Christian education, has helped organize 26 state foundations to boost corporate giving. In 1943 it anticipated the famed Harvard Report by calling for a "core" of required liberal arts courses in the first two years of college.

Last week, as he got ready "to join the ranks of the unemployed," Guy Snavely made it clear that his championship of the liberal arts colleges was far from finished. His plan for the future: a book called A Survey History of Christian Higher Education in the United States.

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