Frank Erwin Center 30th Anniversary

The Man Behind the Legacy

As we continue our 30th Anniversary celebration here at the Frank Erwin Center, we celebrate its present and its past. In last month’s issue of Applause, we reviewed all of the amazing acts that have graced the Erwin Center stage in the past 30 years. This month, let’s delve deeper into our rich history and remember the man that made it all possible, Frank Erwin himself.

Frank C. Erwin, Jr. was a native of Waxahachie and enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin in 1937. As a student he was very involved in the university and in the community, serving as the president of the Intra-Fraternity council and a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity.

He interrupted his academic studies to serve in the navy during World War II, and later went on to law school from which he graduated in 1948. From 1963 to 1975 he was a member of the Board of Regents and spent four years as its chairman. He spent this time dedicated to the university and to its expansion. His expansionist attitude created some opponents; however, the changes that were made because of his influence serve as a testament to his foresight.

“Most people had ideas,” Lady Bird Johnson remembered, “but Frank Erwin had ideas and ran with them.”
Under his direction, the new academic disciplines of computer science and radio-television-film were added, and enrollment grew from 29,940 students in 1963-64 to 77,437 students in 1974-75. By the time Erwin stepped down, the University of Texas System – which he had helped form in 1967 – comprised twelve component institutions, and the university was deemed by the legislature “A University of the First Class.” His remarkable contributions to the university can still be seen today, in the buildings which he had constructed: Bellmont Hall, Jester Center, the Perry Castñada Library, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Burdine Hall, the Texas Swim Center, the Performing Arts Center, and his namesake, the Frank Erwin Center.

According to Shirley Bird Perry, the Director of the Texas Union at the time, the Frank Erwin Center in particular “changed the whole face of the programmatic activity that could take place at the university.”

Since its opening, the Frank Erwin Center has enriched The University of Texas at Austin and the Austin community itself. In celebrating our 30 years of operation, we are proud to remember the man who made a similar impact through his vision and dedication to the university. He is more than the commemorative bronze bust you pass on your way into the Erwin Center arena, more than a dedicated expansionist, more than a former Chairman of the Board of Regents. He is a legacy.