When Bob Edwards finished Louisville St. Xavier High School in 1965, the future host of NPR Morning Edition saw only one option for attending college.

"I had no choice but night school," Edwards says. "I had to work my way through school or not go at all. I knew I could do it because my older brother had done it before me."

Edwards enrolled in University College, which at the time housed the night school program at U of L. Night offerings in those days were geared toward business majors so that determined Edwards' major.

Bob Edwards

Edwards is part of a long line of nontraditional U of L students who completed their studies at nights and on weekends. U of L's first comprehensive night school program dates back to 1928, when U of L picked up a variety of college-level courses that had been offered through the local YMCA. In 1935 the university formed the Division of Adult Education to administer the night offerings, and in 1957 the evening program became known as University College.

UC lasted until 1982 when the administration of evening classes was shifted away from a centralized structure.

U of L's night program was born just before the nation plunged into the Great Depression. Despite the nation's economic decline, the program grew rapidly during the 1930s and topped 1,600 students by the end of the decade.

World War II veterans, armed with GI Bill benefits and a desire to advance professionally and socially, filled the evening program's classrooms immediately after the war.

The economic expansion in the post-World War II era enabled the night program to build strong partnerships with area employers. Companies provided tuition reimbursement for employees who attended night school, and corporate executives with graduate degrees taught many of the business courses. In addition, the Division of Adult Education and later University College arranged non-credit courses for companies and the general public.

In 1960, UC enrollment exceeded 2,500, more than 40 percent of the university's total enrollment of 6,200. That year William Huffman, then dean of UC, described the typical evening student in a Louisville Times article:

"He is past normal college age, but still in his 20s. He works in an office, and he may stand on the bottom rung of the management ladder. He is ambitious to climb. Besides his full-time job during the day and part-time life as a student, chances are he has a wife and child."

About 30 percent of UC enrollment in 1960 was female, Huffman added, and typically "younger, probably in her early 20s and also an office worker."

He estimated that the average UC student earned a degree in seven to nine years.

Some students, however, finished much faster. For example, Edwards took heavy academic loads so that he could maintain his student deferment from military service.

"At one point, Washington decided that a student deferment expired four years after a young man finished high school," Edwards recalls.

That rule made balancing school and work even more difficult, Edwards says. "Fifteen to 18 hours of classes while working full time is no way to get an education or make one's boss happy. I once had to choose between cutting class or getting fired for refusing to work overtime."

While a U of L student, Edwards worked several different jobs but eventually became an announcer at a New Albany radio station.

He continued his broadcasting career in the military and earned a master's degree in broadcast journalism at American University after his discharge.

Unlike Edwards, Ted Stewart, a night student in the 1940s and '50s, had time for extracurricular activities. He was on student council and helped organize a fraternity specifically for night students.

He says his extracurricular involvement was an important part of his college experience.

"You got a tremendous education in what you did, how you met people and who you met compared with the guy who just went to class," says Stewart, who operated his own photography business while in school.

Stewart also was editor of The Owl, a newspaper produced by students of the night program. The newspaper contained practical information for students, advocacy articles and opinion pieces. It ceased publication in 1971. At U of L, Stewart met his future wife, Ann Hart, a day student who worked part time for DAE director Woodrow Strickler.

Strickler eventually became U of L's 13th president, serving 1968Ð72. The Stewarts were married in 1958, three years after Ted's graduation.

Ann Stewart remembers a close-knit atmosphere among the students, faculty and administrators of DAE. However, she also notes that DAE, which was the largest academic program at U of L, was not universally popular on campus.

"Several people who should have known better were always going around picking up Owls and throwing them in the trash," she says.

She also encountered discrimination against DAE students when she served as a student member of a committee to pick members of Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities. Despite Ted Stewart's many extracurricular activities, the committee turned down Ann's suggestion that he receive the honor.

Yet Ted has no regrets about his student life or educational opportunities. As a marketing major, he found the part-time professors provided invaluable insight into the changing post-war business world.

"You were really able to get a grasp on what was going on in what you were studying," he says, "and that appealed to me over and above the theory that you got. You really knew what was going on at the time."

After graduation, Stewart began his career in sales and marketing with Pillsbury and stayed in the field until retirement. He eventually owned five appliance stores in Louisville and the surrounding area.

In the 1950s and '60s, the night program worked hard to keep a high community profile and paid attention to community needs, says William Kelly, who joined DAE as assistant director in 1952. Promotional efforts, he notes, ranged from paid media advertising to placing flyers on supermarket checkout counters.

U of L also arranged night courses in public library branches throughout Jefferson County. In 1948, the U of L night program began offering radio correspondence courses with WAVE and WHAS in cooperation with NBC.

"The organization was tuned in as a service organization, one that met the needs of the adult population that wanted to go to college," says Kelly, who left UC in 1967 to take a faculty position in the School of Education.

He added that he was always impressed with the motivation of night students.

"Those who returned to school (after an interruption in their college studies) were at least one grade above their previous work," he says.

When U of L was accepted into the state system in the 1970s, the scope and function of University College began to change. The state mandated that at least one unit of every state-supported university have an open admissions policy.

At U of L, UC became the unit that would admit any high school graduate.

"That brought in a different type of student than, say, the 25-year-old who wanted to get his or her degree at night," says Leicester Moise, acting UC dean from 1980 until its closing in 1982.

University College instituted remedial classes for freshmen who lacked adequate preparation for college. UC also began developing its own degree programs and hiring full-time professors but never fully staffed its classes with full-time instructors.

Instead, it continued to use adjunct professors and professors recruited from the day program.

UC offered degrees in communications, interior design, liberal studies and paralegal studies. In addition, UC continued to administer course offerings for evening students seeking degrees through the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Business and other academic units.

In 1972, Wendell Rayburn was hired to lead UC, becoming U of L's first African American dean. UC's degree programs continued to mature under Rayburn's leadership, but he left in 1980 to become president of Savannah State College in Georgia.

Rayburn's departure came just one year prior to Donald Swain's inauguration as U of L president. Swain was faced with a reduction in state funding early in his administration, so he appointed a committee to cut $4.4 million over a four-year period.

Based on that committee's findings, Swain and the trustees agreed to disband UC and transfer its programs to other units of the university.

Nearly all UC professors and staff members who wanted to stay were offered jobs at U of L, according to Moise. He taught in the political science department until taking early retirement in 1992.

While DAE and UC are now memories from a bygone era, U of L's evening classes, extension programs, continuing education courses and online offerings continue to embody the spirit that started U of L's night program more than 70 years ago. "There will always be a population that needs to work and go to school," Kelly says. n