Leo W. Jenkins - The Man Who Asked 'Why Not?'

Article printedin the ECU Medical Review regarding the history of the School of Medicine. This and other articles may be found in the records of the Development & Alumni Affairs Office and the Chancellor's Office in the University Archives.

Citation for this particular article is: "Dr. Leo W. Jenkins, The man who asked 'why not?'" ECU Medical Review, Vol. 8, No. 3, December 1985, pp. 2-3.

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From 1964 through 1975 Leo Jenkins gave an average of seven talks a week dealing with the medical school. His memories of those early times are vivid ones.

It would be stating the obvious to say that many people had a hand in the sucess of the East Carolina University School of Medicine.There was a cadre of eastern politicians, an army of university officials and a legion of supportive physicians who have contributed right up to this day.But there is only one man whose name is practically synonymous with the school. Dr. Leo W. Jenkins was the first person crazy enough or smart enough, take your pick, to publicly suggest that a medical school just might work here, and who was bull-headed enough or dedicated enough, take your pick, to see it through.Funny how genius is so often revealed in the outlandish idea.

Jenkins retired in 1978 after 31 years of service to the university, 18 as either president or chancellor. At age 72, however, his pace doesn't seem to have slowed. He and his wife, Nancy, have traveled to 33 countries in the last four years, with a jaunt to Europe and the Orient scheduled this fall.He spends a good deal of time on the telephone keeping up with his six children or advising colleagues seeking the counsel of his vast experience.And inevitably, he is still dreaming up and pushing ideas that he is absolutely sure will make North Carolina a better place to live.

The Question

Jenkins formulated one of those ideas as a question way back in 1964:should the provision of adequate modern medical care be dependent upon geography?Why, he asked, should residents of the Piedmont be the beneficiaries of a 20th century health care system and Easterners relegated to one more reminiscent of the 19th?

For Jenkins and a handful of supporters, the answers were clear and the remedy seemed obvious: Establish a state-supported medical school at ECU to act as an incubator for desperately needed primary care physicians and to serve as the hub of a regional network of modern medical care.

The development of a medical school was for Jenkins a litmus test of the state's commitment to invest in the welfare of its people.It also went to the heart of his conception of the role of the modern university.He frequently notes the inscription of the Latin word sevire on the ECU seal; the translation is "to serve."

"Does that mean anything or are they just a couple of nice words?" asks Jenkins."Thre's no use preaching that if you don't practice it."

Outside the East, opposition to the plan was widespread and formidable. Opponents included powerful Piedmont politicians, influential businessmen, major urban newspapers, the higher education establishment and the state medical society. Though there was a general agreement that health care service delivery needed to be upgraded in the East, the idea of a new medical school was rejected as too costly, other measures were considered more effecitve, and ECU was deemed ill-equipped academically to support a medical school.

Jenkins felt the opponents of the medical school had one primary motivation -- to defend the status quo. "It wasn't anti-Eaast Carolina; it was pro-themselves," he said. "They didn't want to share the pie."

The ensuing conflict has often been framed in terms of natural rivalries: the rural East against the urban Piedmont, the academic newcomer versus the education establishment. In this alignment, ECU was cast as David against Goliath, a role that Jenkins relished and exploited."Everybody loves an underdog," he said.

Strategy

Jenkins maintained that he relied on only one strategy in making his case for a medical school. "We based it on accuracy," he said. "We felt that there was one thing we could not be caught doing, and that was not knowing what we were talking about or not telling the truth."

So before making a serious bid for a medical school, Jenkins said he asked ECU administrator and scholar Dr. Robert Williams to investigate every claim made about health care in Eastern North Carolina. In that way, when Jenkins spoke of doctor-patient ratios, acute care hospital beds and infant mortality rates, he knew what he was talking about.

"Our greatest strategy and our greatest weapon was the truth," he said."I said let's research this thing over and when we get what we know is the truth let's keep hammering at it."

"Hammering" might not be a strong enough word.From 1964 through 1975, Jenkins said, he gave an average of seven talks a week dealing with the medical school. Other ECU officials hit the banquet trail too, including Drs. Edwin W. Monroe and Wallace R. Wooles.Their principal aduiences were service clubs, many of them located in Piedmont cities.

Not everyone received them with open arms. Jenkins recalled that when he addressed a group of students at one of the Big Four universities, a young lady provided musical accompaniment -- a chorus of boos. But the chancellor usually gave as good as he got. "Miss," he said politely, "why don't you come up to the microphone so everyone can hear you better and I'll sit out there and boo you!"

In retrospect, however, Jenkins' most effective preaching was probably done to state legislators. The fight over the school was initiated in the General Assembly in 1965 and pressed throughout the next 10 years by eastern senators and representatives until the four-year school was funded. Legislative support for the school usually came over the objection of state higher education authorities, who generally opposed the school and condemned the legislature for what they saw as an encroachment on their powers.

Jenkins had no apologies for taking the cause to the General Assembly.Though his opponents accused him of playing politics with higher education, Jenkins saw it as submitting the issue to the "will of the people," a frequently invoked phrase at the time.In any case, many ECU supporters believed the legislature was the only forum where the question could receive an unbiased hearing.

Low Points

Jenkins describes the campaign for the school as an adventure and even fun, but it wasn't all a bed of roses. There were a lot of people who would have liked to have dumped him as chancellor, and they might have done it too, except for one thing: "They did not know who would come to my rescue."

He often felt the sting of public criticism, and he was frequently portrayed in the newspaper editorials as an empire-builder and glory-seeker. Jenkins is still convinced that the state's major dailies collaborated with his opponents against him.He would probably admit, though, that he used the media as much as it abused him.

Jenkins remembers several low points during the campaign, but the lowest probably came in 1973. A team of "independent" consultants commissioned by the Board of Governors to evaluate the medical school issue came out with an extremely negative report, striking a body blow to his hopes for a four-year school. The chancellor left his office and went to a movie, the only place he could think clearly about whether it might be best to throw in the towel.He talked it over with his family.Later, he said, a phone call to Sen. Robert Morgan left him convinced that he should keep fighting.

A Group Effort

Jenkins readily admits that the rapid development of the medical school far exceeded his or anyone else's expectations, and has humbled even its harshest critics.When he's asked if the 11-year struggle was worth it, he tells of a visit he made the the school's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Standing alongside six critically ill infants, Jenkins asked a neonatologist what their fate would have been before the school was built.The doctor told him that two would be dead, two would be severely retarded, and two would be borderline.With the NICU and a little luck, all of them would grow up without any handicaps.

"Does that answer the question, 'Was it worthwhile?'" Jenkins said.

In assessing his role in the establishment of the school, Jenkins exhibits a modesty that seems genuine.As chancellor of the university, he said, he sometimes got too much of the blame when things went wrong, but he has also been given too much of the credit. He calls the school a group effort.

"I have one cardinal rule of always getting the very best people and leaving them alone,"he said. "I look for people who know how to do it and are dedicated to the cause.Then I get out of the way."

Always impatient to move on to another new idea, that's Leo Jenkins.But to his everlasting credit, he keeps asking that question, "Why not?"