FEATURED STORY
The Women Who Built (and Saved) Frostburg State
BY JOHN KIRBY '79 Contributing Writer
On April 9, 2023, FSU officially reached its 125th anniversary when the Budget Bill was signed into law that included the location of State Normal School No. 2 to be in the mountain mining town of Frostburg in Allegany County. There are many stories of who and why and how, but one of the lesser explored topics, to me at least, was the critical role that women played over the years in growth of this public school of education.
In the beginning, the state offered to fund the construction of a school to take qualified students and turn them into teachers. The Frostburg community of the late 19th century was dominated by the operations of undergrown coal mines, where men and boys risked their lives six days a week to produce the fuel of the American Industrial Revolution. The miners took small portions of their small weekly pay to support the effort to buy the land for State Normal School No. 2. These men represented families with extremely limited income, housing, food and health care. The children would receive a public education up to say the fourth grade and then boys were expected to join the march to mines. It was a cycle of hard labor, near poverty and then illness and death for many.
Each of those miners represented a family and each of those families had a wife or mother who then had to stretch their meager income a little further to make up for the loss of money donated to the cause. Those women made it possible for their families to donate while still paying living expenses and putting food on the table and clothing on the children. It is important to honor the wives and mothers of the miners who are not, unfortunately, listed on the ledgers of those who donated. They somehow made up for the reduction in their already meager incomes.
In the era of the first classes from State Normal School No. 2, the majority of teachers trained and sent out into the communities of Mountain Maryland were young, unmarried women. It was a job that was acceptable for women to do in the male-dominated world of the time. After two years of training, these bright young ladies ventured out into the one-room schoolhouses all across the region to provide more and better education to the population. From these meager beginnings, the region’s families began to understand the importance of education to provide a better future for their children. The early year graduates of State Normal School No. 2 are some of the most importance FSU women and should be remembered during this 125th anniversary celebration.
As time marched on, the school grew in numbers and importance. However, in the middle of the 20th century following the global conflict of WWII, a change occurred in the leadership of the state. The question was asked: “Was a small teacher school really needed way out there in the mountains?” Students could come to the cities of the east, receive their training and return to the mountains to teach. Fortunately, Frostburg was under the strong leadership of then-President Lillian Compton. It is her role in leading the fight to save the school from the bureaucracy in the state capital who were trying to balance the books between limited funding and massive growth of returning GIs wanting to get a college education. For those of us who came after Compton’s tenure, the stories were told with a hush and reverence. Without Lillian Compton as one of the FSU women, there might not have been a Frostburg State today.
During the following years of great adjustment, the 1960s and 1970s and even into the 1980s, Frostburg State changed. In 1959 my father would receive a teaching degree (posthumously) from Frostburg State Teachers College and then in 1979 I would receive a degree from Frostburg State College. The institution grew rapidly in numbers of students, faculty, programs and degrees at a time when the whole world seemed to be changing around us.
During this era, there came another giant who provided a standard for the entire institution to follow. For 47 years, Dr. Alice Manicur, vice president for Student Affairs, was a fixture that enabled the school to move through the education and social changes it faced. She provided, through her commitment to the school and her expectations of those around her, a rock-like steadfastness of a quality educational experience. Manicur made history as the first female president of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). Frostburg graduates were reflections of Manicur’s strong leadership, along with many other faculty, representing the best teachers available in the state. As the populations of the counties surrounding D.C. grew, school boards looked to Frostburg to fill their ever-growing needs for teachers.
The final “Frostburg woman” that I want to note is President Catherine Gira. In the early 1990s, as the world economy shifted, the isolated area of Mountain Maryland lost large portions of its economic base as large manufacturing plants closed one after another. Local elected and business leaders attempting to deal with these global economic shifts were left with few options. One of the most easily apparent was to shift Frostburg State’s reputation beyond its status of a small liberal arts school, whose primary focus remained training teachers, into a regional educational-based economic engine. Such a significant change would require great leadership at the school that was respected in the state capital and among the other public institutions in Maryland. Gira was that leader. She was a classically educated lady and yet had a full understanding of the opportunities of technology and politics. She would be the focus of any room she entered, and, with this status, she partnered with then speaker of the House, the late Casper R. Taylor, Jr., to move Frostburg State into a position as an equal among Maryland schools. While the name change occurred before her tenure, it was Gira who led the effort to turn a small “college” into a proper “university.” The best tribute to her importance is the building that now bears her name – the Catherine Gira Center for Communications and Information Technology.
There are many female administrators, faculty and staff who have contributed to the overall success of Frostburg State University. I would also be terribly remiss if I did not mention the long line of mothers, who sacrificed and saved to make sure we could have the chance of a college education. Some worked extra jobs or hours to save the money we needed. Some left good jobs in the private sector to take employment as campus cleaning staff, library aids, bookstore clerks and (one in particular) in the business office so we could get a college degree with little or no tuition cost. Thanks, Mom.
Lillian Compton, Frostburg president 1945-1954
Dr. Alice Manicur, vice president for Student Affairs 1960-2007
Dr. Catherine R. Gira, Frostburg president 1991-2006
John R. Kirby ’79 is the retired city administrator for the city of Frostburg and one of the honorary co-chairs of the 125th anniversary celebration. He is a tour guide and volunteer at the Frostburg City Museum.