The Rollins Row (Cont'd)

For a few days at least, it had seemed as if the long row over the economy firings of 23 Rollins College faculty members might be simmering down at last. At an emergency session in Manhattan last month, a majority of the trustees had decided that President Paul A. Wagner would have to resign, and they had set a date for a Winter Park, Fla. meeting to make the final arrangements (TIME, May 7). But last week--before the meeting could take place--the whole row flared up again.

It began when about two-thirds of Rollins' 630 students went out on strike, threatened to stay out until the trustees cleared up the whole controversy once & for all. Then the undergraduate weekly Sandspur put out a special anti-Wagner issue, accusing the president of distorting the facts about the college's financial crisis. Wagner denounced the issue as "filled with falsehoods ... a smear on my reputation." Unless the editors retracted, said he, he would suspend them all.

The counterblast served only to heighten the tension. The Sandspur editors refused to retract, instead announced that they would put out another issue "in elaboration of the last one." Finally, two days ahead of their scheduled meeting, the majority of the trustees stepped in again.

This time, they formally announced that Wagner was fired. "During the last month of his administration," said the trustees, "one paramount fact became increasingly evident. That was that his services in behalf of the college have not contributed to the best interests of the institution." To take his place, they appointed as acting president Art Professor Hugh F.

McKean, 42, a Rollins graduate who has been on the faculty for 20 years, is married to one of the Rollins trustees. Though the trustees had approved all of Wagner's economy measures in the first place, they also decided that Rollins' finances were not in such bad shape after all, and agreed to reinstate all the facultymen Wagner had fired with their consent.

But this week Paul Wagner was still fighting back. He declared the Manhattan decision illegal, on the basis that the meeting took place outside the state. Furthermore, said he, the majority of the trustees had not told the whole story. "Before taking this action, they offered me $50,000 to resign. This was the third successive offer I have ignored. They must have finally realized that my principles are not for sale ... I am still president of Rollins College, and intend to remain so unless legally removed ... I will be in the president's office as usual."

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