Carl W. McIntosh
Carl Weston McIntosh, Jr. (December 1, 1914 – January 19, 2009) was an American professor of forensics and acting.
He was acting executive dean when the college achieved its independence from the University of Idaho in March 1947, and he elevated it into a four-year, bachelor's degree-granting institution in December 1948.
He established the university's nursing and pre-medical education programs and completed its first football stadium and creative arts complex, but also faced a years of fiscal austerity imposed by the state legislature.
[1] While engaged in his studies, McIntosh obtained an appointment as an instructor in forensics (public speaking) at Park College in Parkville, Missouri.
In 1939, McIntosh accepted a position as an instructor of forensics at what was then known as the Southern Branch of the University of Idaho.
He was the assigned to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), during which he saw service in Belgium, France, and Germany.
He was promoted to associate professor of speech, and served as director of the Summer Session and as Acting Executive Dean in 1947.
[6] Although McIntosh was not originally interested in being an administrator, once the school became an independent college he decided he wanted to remain president and see it through its early growing pains.
The college, founded in 1949, had received a permanent campus in 1950 and had grown rapidly in enrollment under its first president, Peter Victor Peterson.
In 1972, he persuaded the legislature to allow MSU to participate in the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho (WWAMI) medical program, which allowed 20 MSU graduates a year to complete medical school at the University of Washington.
[18] McIntosh's arrival at MSU coincided with a confidential report by state auditors which revealed that the university's accounting system was 80 years of out date.
Although not a single incident of embezzlement or misuse of funds had occurred (a fact McIntosh found remarkable), the state legislature seized on the report to denounce MSU as "irresponsible" and "profligate" in its spending.
He was particularly interested in MSU, where McIntosh's laid-back governance style was widely considered to have hurt the university.
In March 1976, Pettit announced he was confiscating $1 million in surplus student fees from MSU — money he argued the university was trying to hide from state auditors and the legislature.
The public outcry about the "hidden million" led the Board of Regents to consider whether to request McIntosh's resignation.
His low-key leadership style, the constant fiscal battles with the legislature, and the continuing attacks by Pettit led the university's board of regents to request McIntosh's resignation on June 30, 1977, which he tendered.
(Pettit resigned the following year, his combative attempt to turn the commissioner's office into a sort of chancellorship having failed.
[6] Idaho State University renamed its new, $1 million Red Hill student housing complex the Carl W. Mcintosh Manor after him in November 1976.
[4] In 1995, Montana State University named its newly completed forty-eight unit family housing complex "McIntosh Court" in his honor.
