Cecil Mackey’s Presidency at Texas Tech
H. Allen Anderson, Ph. D.
Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library
hugh.a.anderson@ttu.edu
After Grover Murray announced his decision to step down as Texas Tech’s president at the end of the 1976 spring semester to concentrate on his scientific endeavors and geology classes, the Board of Regents began a nationwide search for a worthy successor, one who could continue the progress of the University toward top-notch status. Before long, they zeroed in on the dynamic second president of the University of South Florida, a young institution in Tampa, Maurice Cecil Mackey. Having earned both his BA and MA degrees in economics at the University of Alabama, Mackey had received his doctorate in philosophy, focusing on economic theory, the history of economic thought, and the relationship of government to business and finance, in 1955. Following a two-year active duty stint with the fledgling U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado as one of its four pioneer economics professors, Mackey had returned to his home state and alma mater where he received a Bachelor of Law degree and subsequently was admitted to that state’s bar. This led to federal government jobs with the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly, the Federal Aviation Agency, the Office of Transportation for the U.S. Department of Commerce, then Assistant Secretary for Policy and Development for the newly-created Department of Transportation. From Washington, he held professorships at the University of Maryland and Florida State before succeeding USF’s founding president. His five-year tenure there had resulted in the establishment of that institution’s medical school, complete with a nursing school, the instigation of its first ever Ph.D. programs, and the opening of new branch campuses at Sarasota and Fort Myers. In addition he had taught economics courses and promoted USF as a “metropolitan university.” And as a member of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASU), he had recently returned from a goodwill visit to China.
Such an impeccable background at once attracted the attention of the Texas Tech Regents, and in mid-July 1976, as the nation was celebrating its Bicentennial anniversary, Mackey accepted their invitation to come to Lubbock as the University’s ninth president. In August of that year, just prior to his move from Florida, Wayne James, Executive Director of the Tech Ex-Students’ Association, conducted a first-hand interview with Dr. Mackey, who gave a glowing first impression of the South Plains atmosphere and explained his role as a university president, along with his hopes and dreams for Tech. “Texas Tech is a very exciting university,” he stated in that interview. “It has obviously made great strides in the recent past. It has the potential of being one of the truly distinguished universities in the United States, and the opportunity to become a part of the advancement that is going to take place in the next decade was very appealing.” And on September 1, 1976, Grover Murray happily turned the proverbial reins over to his successor. At Mackey’s inauguration ceremony in October, thousands of visiting dignitaries participated in the procession. David Matthews, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, delivered the address, along with remarks by Executive Vice President Glenn Barnett; Kenneth Ashworth, commissioner of the Texas College Coordinating Board, who introduced the speaker; and Dr. Judson Williams, the Board chairman, who formally installed the new president. Shortly after Mackey’s installation, Ken Thompson, his old colleague from both Florida State and USF, followed him to Tech as its Vice President of Administration.
From the first, Dr. Mackey was determined to keep himself visible and develop a close rapport with his peers at Tech. “I think the Board [of Regents] wants an active and aggressive president,” he declared. One of his primary commitments was to the teaching function, which he deemed the heart of the University. Indeed, he had come also as a professor of law, at a time when student enrollment at the Law School was on the rise. In a statement issued through the public press in August, he declared that a university was no better than the quality of its faculty, and that mortar and brick were important only as they essential to the teaching and research that identified such an institution. He welcomed faculty input, deeming it very compatible with “university thinking and operation,” and he had no problem combining dedication to the academic aspect with his administrative sense. In relation to that philosophy, Mackey was instrumental in the establishment of the Faculty Senate, in lieu of the previous Faculty Council, the main difference being that the president would not be included in its membership. One unmistakable signal of his basic understanding of the faculty viewpoint was the favorable, liberal stance he took on the tenure question, declaring that he was all for it, at least “until a better way was discovered for effecting its purpose.” In addition, Mackey became a member of the Tech Dad’s Association and after consideration felt that the organization’s name should be changed to better utilize the association of the parents of students. Thus the annual Dad’s Day football classic was expanded to Parents’ Day. Dean James Allen, although retired by then, found Mackey “easy to understand,” and along with many others characterized him as “a brilliant thinker, one of high order, one who could see both the forest and its trees. And there was force and integrity, in a quiet but unmistakable way.” Among other things, Mackey introduced intensive reviews of academic units, stressed long-range planning, and initiated procedures for more efficient management and use of resources. During his tenure, eleven important campus buildings, including the Robert Ewalt Recreation Center, with its Olympic size indoor swimming pool, were completed or begun, computer facilities were upgraded, new graduate degrees in atmospheric science and biology were offered, as well as an undergraduate degree in landscape architecture. In addition, Mackey’s wife Claire, who had majored in music, was a talented flute player and played an active role in campus events, came up with the idea of a Madrigal program for the Music department. Thus was formed the Madrigal Singers, whose annual Christmas program became a Yuletide tradition at Tech. It was in the first year of his presidency that Texas Tech won its first ever Southwest Conference football co-championship, and Mackey became an avid supporter of Tech athletics, as well as student organizations. One memorable ceremony in which he had a primary role was his awarding of the official University medallion to longtime U.S. Congressman George Mahon, who retired from that office in 1978 after 44 years. (Mahon’s replacement, incidentally, was Kent Hance, outstanding Tech alum who would one day play a commanding role in his alma mater’s leadership in the future.)
Mackey was especially supportive of the Tech School of Medicine, which his predecessor had established. Granted, this was a crucial period of growth for the University Health Sciences Center, and when Governor Bill Clements sought budget cuts for the new institution in 1978, threatening its fledgling nursing school, Mackey was at the forefront of the West Texas lobbying efforts to keep it going. In the end, not only did the HSC gain full accreditation and $3.5 million from the Legislature toward the end of the Mackey administration, but the Tech leadership received permission to increase its enrollment 100 per cent. Mackey, indeed, on many occasions effectively represented the University before governmental groups and influential individuals at all government levels, further enhancing Tech’s growth and development. Bonds between the University and the HSC and various private support groups were strengthened, and in the words of Regent Robert L. Pfluger, “Mackey has led both institutions forward in the spirit of the law granting equality of opportunity to all who study and work within the campus community.”
On the international scene, Mackey backed his predecessor’s ICASALS program and, owing largely to his past services with the federal government in Washington, was chosen president of the AASCU. In that capacity, in 1977, he headed a delegation of educators on a U.S. State Department-sponsored visit to Egypt and Greece. In Egypt, Mackey and the delegation met with Egyptian educators and had the honor of presenting President Anwar Sadat with a NASA satellite map of the Nile Delta.
As a family man, Mackey reserved late afternoons for time with his children. When he and Claire came in 1976, their oldest daughter, Carol, at age 19, was a sophomore at Florida State. But the two younger ones, John, age 9, and Ann, age 6, came with their parents and were soon enrolled in the Lubbock schools. One unusual hobby of his was piloting hot air balloons, perhaps a holdover from his Air Force days. But he admitted that he had not done any of that after starting his tenure in Lubbock, although he still had a flying license to do so. Moreover, he had been a motorcycle enthusiast and enjoyed riding quite a bit in earlier years. But as he quipped, “cars don’t look out for motorcycle drivers. It makes you a real defensive driver.”
Dr. Mackey during his Texas Tech presidency battled the State Legislature and Gov. Bill Clements in his efforts to maintain adequate funding for the Medical School and HSC and the welfare of the students, Mackey always sought to work closely in cooperation with the Board of Regents and respected their decisions. One observer from the downtown community praised the president’s administrative style thus: “Mackey comes to the Board meetings prepared like a lawyer for a court trial. He’s done his research, he’s ready for any question, and he’ll push the Board for a decision in each case, if necessary.” In February 1977, the Board at Mackey’s urging accepted a housing amendment allowing sophomores to live off-campus, although some Board members requested postponement of the move until after a study on visitation and discipline could be conducted. In the end Mackey, true to his spirit of cooperation, went along with the Board’s decision. And his overall popularity among most students and faculty never wavered.
Mackey’s years at the Tech helm proved to be short, mainly because other schools were coveting his leadership. Foremost among them was Michigan State University at Lansing, whose regents finally talked him into accepting the presidency of their institution in the summer of 1979 at a higher salary. The TTU Board bade him farewell with a written resolution reviewing his accomplishments, especially his successful efforts to secure adequate appropriations for the Medical School and the HSC, including the nursing school, for the 1979-80 school year. Mackey and his family thus departed Lubbock on a positive note in August to assume his new role. He remained president of MSU until 1985, when he retired from that office. But he kept his faculty position in MSU’s Department of Economics where he has continued to teach online and hybrid courses in comparative economics, macroeconomics and general business law as well as focused-topic film study course for the English department, with the help of longtime research assistants.
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Posted:
2/22/2018
Originator:
Tai Kreidler
Email:
tai.kreidler@ttu.edu
Department:
Library
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