Andrew J. Sledd

THIRTY-FOUR YEAR old Andrew Sledd had a dream.A product of Harvard and Yale and the first President of the University

of Florida, he would hire the best faculty he could find for the newly established UF.The year was 1904 and Sledd sought exemplary citizens, who loved their professions, to inspire students with knowledge, insight, and wisdom.During his four year term as UF President, Sledd assembled a faculty of educators, linguists, historians, chemists, zoologists, botanists, mathematicians, horticulturalists, and animal scientists , men with national and international academic achievements and degrees.

The Athanaeum Society, named after the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, Athena, had its first official meeting on November 7, 1905 - Sledd,s 35th birthday.100 years later, The Athenaeum Society is the oldest faculty organization at the University

of Florida and has continued without interruption through wars, depressions, and changing social mores.

A component of Andrew Sledd,s dream was a ,social and literary, club tasking his faculty to make scholarly ,talks, and interact with other faculty thus gaining an appreciation of each other.

THIRTY-FOUR YEAR old Andrew Sledd had a dream.A product of Harvard and Yale and the first President of the University of Florida, he would hire the best faculty he could find for the newly established UF.The year was 1904 and Sledd sought exemplary citizens, who loved their professions, to inspire students with knowledge, insight, and wisdom.During his four year term as UF President, Sledd assembled a faculty of educators, linguists, historians, chemists, zoologists, botanists, mathematicians, horticulturalists, and animal scientists , men with national and international academic achievements and degrees.

The Athanaeum Society, named after the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, Athena, had its first official meeting on November 7, 1905 - Sledd,s 35th birthday.100 years later, The Athenaeum Society is the oldest faculty organization at the University of Florida and has continued without interruption through wars, depressions, and changing social mores.

A component of Andrew Sledd,s dream was a ,social and literary, club tasking his faculty to make scholarly ,talks, and interact with other faculty thus gaining an appreciation of each other.

During his tenure as historian, Van Ness looks forward to exploring the earlier eras of university history, including the tenure of UF's first president, Andrew Sledd, which lasted from 1904 to 1909.

"He did more in those five years than a lot of his successors combined," Van Ness said, adding that Sledd was "ahead of his time" concerning such controversial issues as race.

"It's very interesting, the university's past - both the good, the bad and the ugly," he said.

2. Andrew J. Sledd, an early and famous president of UF who once said "The University of Florida shall never offer financial inducements for young men to play athletics," was fired after he was judged to be too liberal on "The Negro Question."The evidence?An Atlantic Monthly article arguing that race relations in the south would improve dramatically if whites would just treat blacks with common respect in daily life.He suggested such scandalous things as white gentlemen tipping their hats to black women, and so on.