Charles Claude Selecman

C. C. Selecman
3rd President of Southern Methodist University
In office 1923–1938
Preceded by	Hiram Boaz
Succeeded by	Umphrey Lee
Personal details
Born	(1874-10-13)October 13, 1874 Savannah, Missouri
Died	March 27, 1958(1958-03-27) (aged 83) Dallas, Texas
Education	Central College

Charles Claude Selecman (October 13, 1874 – March 27, 1958) was an American Methodist pastor and the third president of Southern Methodist University (1923 -1938). Selecman entered office during a difficult financial time for SMU and managed to put the university on sounder footing while expanding the campus and growing the enrollment.

These achievements would largely be overshadowed, however, by his chilling effect on SMU's intellectual and social environment. As a religious fundamentalist and opponent of secular education, Selecman banned dances, shuttered student groups he opposed, and fired faculty with whom he disagreed, including theologian and future Vanderbilt chancellor Harvie Branscomb. In the 1929 satirical novel Pigskin, a character based on Selecman was described as "a cross between the Apostle Paul and Benito Mussolini."

In 1938, Selecman was elected as a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and departed SMU. In this capacity, he would lead both the Oklahoma Conference and the North Texas Conference. He would ascend to the Methodist Church's highest office, becoming president of the Council of Bishops in 1945.

Early life and education

Charles Claude Selecman was born on October 13, 1874, in Savannah, Missouri. In 1882, he attended Central College in Fayette, Missouri, but never graduated.

Career

Selecman worked as a pastor in Pattonsburg, Missouri, in 1898. Later, he was a missionary in Louisiana and Missouri. In 1913, he was a pastor in Los Angeles, California. By 1914, he became the pastor of the newly built Trinity Auditorium in Downtown Los Angeles.

Selecman moved to Dallas, Texas, in 1920, where he became the pastor of the newly built First Methodist Church, South. The Ku Klux Klan was ascendant in Dallas at this time, and in 1921 Selecman offered his "qualified endorsement" of the white supremacist movement, saying that,

"provided these groups of men are good men, provided they are of good intentions and provided their activities have good effect, I am going to be one of the last to reprimand them for their efforts to check disobedience to the law, disloyalty and indecency."

Southern Methodist University

In 1923, Selecman was appointed as the third President of Southern Methodist University, after at least two other candidates declined the position. Though backed by Dallas Methodists, Selecman was a controversial choice, as he lacked a college degree and had no experience in university administration.

Selecman arrived at the university as it was in the midst of an ideological struggle between fundamentalism and liberalism. The latter represented a small but vital current among faculty and moderate Methodist clergy, who became the targets of fundamentalists like Baptist preacher and Searchlight publisher J. Frank Norris. In 1923, Norris led an attack on a popular SMU professor, Mims Thornburg Workman, for alleged heresy. In 1925, Selecman fired Workman, who that same year had been chosen by the students as their favorite teacher. When Harvie Branscomb, a rising star on the faculty, expressed his public disapproval of what had happened to Workman in the Dallas Morning News, he was also immediately fired by Selecman. In another incident, Selecman engineered the removal of Joseph D. Doty, instructor and former Rhodes Scholar, for allowing two students to publish a joke about the president's "high-handed methods" and "big stick policy" in the yearbook.

In 1930, as the financial situation as SMU deteriorated, Selecman, who had been given a 25% salary raise, asked faculty to make a voluntary contribution to cover the budgetary shortfall. The following year, nearly half of the faculty, including three deans, unsuccessfully petitioned for a meeting with the board of trustees to discuss the deteriorating situation under Selecman—an event that would be remembered as "The Faculty Rebellion of 1931."

Though Selecman was widely disliked by faculty and students, he enjoyed the support of the Dallas business community, thanks to support for utilitarian education and college football.

Under his leadership, the campus buildings went from two to seven, and the endowment from US$883,000 to US$2,300,000.

Bishop of the Methodist Church

Selecman had long wanted to be made a bishop in the Methodist Church and was greatly disappointed when he lost the election at the 1930 General Convention. He was successfully elected to the position in 1938, however, promptly resigned his presidency to move to Oklahoma City. He moved back to Dallas in 1944. In 1945, he was elected President of the Council of Bishops of the Methodist Church. He also served as the President of the Methodist General Board of Evangelism.

Selecman retired in 1948, and was elected to the Methodist Hall of Fame in philanthropy in 1951.

Selecman died on March 27, 1958, in Dallas, Texas.

Personal life

Selecman married Bess Kyle Beckner on April 27, 1899. They had a son, Dr. Frank Selecman, who married Eloise Olive and had two children—Charles Edward Selecman and Mary Selecman Deaton and a daughter, Josephine, who married Douglas Warren Forbes. Bess died in 1943 and Selecman married his second wife, Jackie (Mrs. Pierre D. Mason of Hollywood, California,) in June 1948.

Publications

• The Methodist First Reader "On Being a Christian", by Charles Claude Selecman
• The Methodist Primer, by Charles Claude Selecman

See also

• List of bishops of the United Methodist Church