Hobart Franklin Heller collection

Collection

Identifier: 01EIU-061

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This series of records consists of documents pertaining to University activities, with very little material of a personal nature. The majority of the records are correspondence dealing with various University matters. Also represented are programs from important University events and a few photographs. Records in this series extend from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Arrangement of this series is by type of record, and within each folder (usually) by chronological order. In their original state the records were in some semblance of order, however slight rearrangement was necessary to facilitate access to the material.

Appraisal As part of the Eastern Illinois University Manuscript Collection, the Heller records contribute considerable value to the University Archives. They document much of the administrative activities at Eastern, particularly communication between the President and the Vice President of Instruction, a position which Heller held for six years.

These records are no longer needed for administrative purposes; however they have research and historical value. The records contain information about administrative issues, organizational restructuring, and campus events, such as building dedications and inaugural ceremonies.

Dates

Created: 1924-1974
Other: Majority of material found in 1950-1967

Creator

Heller, Hobart Franklin (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

No special conditions exist for access to these records

Biographical / Historical

Hobart Franklin Heller was born on September 23, 1901, in Forty Fort, Pennsylvania, to Nathan and Frances (Keen) Heller. He married Hilda Albertson. They had no children.

Heller earned a B.S. degree at Gettysburg College in 1924, an M.A. at Columbia University in 1931, and a Ph.D. at Columbia in 1940. He taught high school mathematics before joining the faculty at Eastern Illinois State Teachers College as a Professor of Mathematics in 1931.

Dr. Heller served as Dean of Men from 1934-1942, Dean of the College from 1942-1961, concurrently acting as Math Department Chair from 1944-47. In 1961 he became the first Vice President for Instruction, a position he held until his retirement in 1967.

During World War II Heller was one of several Eastern faculty members to become a ground school instructor for the Navy pilot training program which was started in July 1942.

In his thirty-six years of employment at Eastern, Heller was on many committees including the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, and was chairman of Task Force A for the Illinois Statewide Articulation Conference for two-year and four-year colleges. After retirement from Eastern he and his wife returned to their home state of Pennsylvania, where he continued to work in higher education. He spent two years at the Pennsylvania Department of Public Instruction as an Assistant to the Commission of Higher Education; was Acting Dean of the Graduate School at Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, for one year; and served in a part-time advisory capacity at Bloomsburg State College.

In 1977 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Eastern. He died on March 4, 1981, at his home in Berwick, Pennsylvania.