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Volume 17, Number I
ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
August, 1974
COLLEGE OF LAW WILL ENTER SEVENTY- FIFTH YEAR
"Full Grown But Ever Growing" Characterization
Of The School Never More Applicable Than Today
CRUMMER HALL: This modern classroom building was completed in 1968. Graduates of the mid-
fifties will contrast it with the old, so called "Courtroom" with its falling plaster and "classroom B",
where you had to peer around pillars in order to see the professor. In those days complaints were
not about the lack of air-conditioning but the almost total lack of any air.
Stetson College of Law has just completed its 20th year on the St. Petersburg
campus, and during the coming year it will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its
founding in 1900. Since its inception it has fought a continuous battle for survival
against such common foes of private institutions as lack of facilities, lack of money
and a dearth of applications. Its problems have been multiplied by two world wars
which took books from the hands of its :
On the other hand, the less than
$100,000 that the University invested in
the St. Petersburg property 20 years
ago is now represented by a plant and
facilities with a replacement value of
$7,500,000. The 1954 library collection,
charitably estimated as comprising
16,000 volumes, initially housed in a
small, stifling hot and bug-infested
building, has grown to 69,000 volumes
and is housed in a $1,500,000 modern
structure which has a book capacity of
160,000 volumes and up-to-date equipment for study and research.
young people and replaced them with
guns. Yet, always, it has emerged from
each crisis a stronger and better school.
Inflation Hurts
Its number one enemy today is inflation. In 1900 tuition was $72.60 per
year; in 1954, the year of its relocation
in St. Petersburg, it was $275.00 per
semester; today the annual charge is
$2400, with an extra fee for attending
the summer session. The 1954 budget
has grown from less than $200,000 to
$1,200,000; an electric bill of $8,000 in
1954 will be approximately $80,000 during the coming year. An annual expenditure in the library in 1954 of $15,000
has grown to $150,000. Clinical training, unheard of in the mid-fifties, now
carries a price tag of more than $30,000
a year. Our Law Review, non-existent
until 1970, is published at an annual expense of $12,000. Financial aid for students next year will exceed $100,000 for
the first time in the history of the
College.
Clinical Programs
The clinical programs, public defender, prosecution and civil, are now sufficiently large to give 90 third year law
students exposure to valuable, practical
training each year.
Attendance during the academic year
1909-1910 averaged 18 students. The
total enrollment the first year in St.
Petersburg was 94, of whom 36 were
freshmen. The College was literally
"beating the bushes" to get students.
Today, in order to limit its enrollment to
the optimum that experience has shown
most likely to produce high scholastic
performance and economy of operation
(which is about 400-425), the College
accepts fewer than seven percent of its
applicants. The result, naturally, manifests itself in the quality and caliber of
the student body.
More Women Enrollees
During the summer session just completed, 83 new students were admitted.
Of this number about 15 percent were
women, 62 of 83 were Florida residents,
and the overall undergraduate average
of the group approximated "B". The
quota for the September entering class,
set at not to exceed I 10, has been met
since July I. Qualitatively these students
will rank slightly higher than the summer
group, about one half will be residents
of Florida, and 15 percent of the group
will again be women. Incidentally the
Association of American Law Schools
notes the "dramatic increase" in the
number of women turning to law as a
career and predicts that the present national ratio of 85 hommes to I 5 femmes
will become smaller as the years go by.
In one accredited law school women in
the entering class last year actually outnumbered the males, 67 to 63.
College's Position Strong
Gratifyingly, and despite spiralling
costs of operation, the College of Law
appears stronger today, both financially
and academically, than at any other
time in its history. Our graduates continue to compete favorably with the
graduates of other highly reputable law
schools on bar examinations and in the
job market. And everywhere in legal
circles the name of Stetson commands
respect. We have come of age, "full
grown, but ever growing."
However, there can be no room for
complacency. Sound administration and
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