UNO Magazine: Founding Father

The following story appeared in the most recent issue of the UNO Magazine, which highlighted stories about familal bonds - both biological and by choice.

See more stories from the Summer 2020 issue of the UNO Magazine.

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UNO’s founding father is about to be standing tall over his ever-growing family of Mavericks.

UNO’s roots date to 1908 when it was founded as the University of Omaha, then a non-sectarian Presbyterian college located at 24th and Pratt Streets. Twenty-six students attended the first day of classes, greeted by OU’s first president, Daniel Jenkins, an ordained minister.

Jenkins would serve 18 years as president, sometimes at no pay as the university struggled to find its financial footing. In 1926 he began to experience mental exhaustion and took a leave of absence from his post. He spent time at Johns Hopkins Hospital then in a private New Jersey sanitarium, where he died from dysentery. He was 61.

More than 700 people, many of them Omaha’s most prominent figures, attended his memorial service. They remembered him with glowing praise.

“He will be remembered as long as the university stands,” noted his obituary in the Omaha Bee-News, “and it is destined to endure for ages, just because it is well founded. By his act he devoted himself to a work that sapped his vitality, expended his energy, and yet he gave it all because he believed in his work.”

But while UNO does indeed endure, Jenkins has been little remembered. No campus building bears his name, an honor accorded four of his successors. Save for a small display in the basement archives of Criss Library, there is little to provide students, faculty and staff the story of the university’s first president.

That changes this fall.

Through the initiation and generosity of graduates Al (1957) and Beverly (1958) Thomsen, a life-sized bronze sculpture of Jenkins soon will grace campus at its busiest point — outside the Milo Bail Student Center. The longtime supporters of UNO are underwriting the project through the Al & Beverly Thomsen Art Excellence fund held at the University of Nebraska Foundation.

“Beverly and I and our statue team are honored and privileged to have the opportunity to finally bring a small token of appreciation and recognition to Daniel Jenkins, the founder of the University of Omaha,” Al Thomsen says. “While it is a long overdue tribute, better late than never.”

Omaha sculptor Matthew Placzek has been commissioned to create the statue. It will be his fourth such work on campus — he also created bronze sculptures of Dean John Lucas and Dr. C. Glenn Lewis for UNO’s College of Business Administration. The Thomsens funded both pieces. Placzek also created bronze pieces for a wall honoring Walter Scott Jr. on UNO’s Scott campus.

Tentative plans are for the Jenkins sculpture to be installed this fall.

It will honor a man who was a father in thrice of thought. He and his wife, Annie, had five children. The youngest, Daniel Jenkins Jr., was born when his father was 50 years old. The younger Jenkins visited UNO’s campus in 1997 and had his photo taken with then-Chancellor Nancy Belck and past Chancellors Kirk Naylor, Ron Roskens and Del Weber.

Daniel Sr. also was a spiritual father. The ordained Presbyterian minister’s first assignment was as pastor of New Salem, Pennsylvania’s, New London Presbyterian Church, the oldest Presbyterian church in the United States.

He later came to Omaha as a faculty member for the Omaha Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He was considered an inspiring preacher and deep thinker. William McEwan, a minister in the Third Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, called Jenkins “one of the great theologians of this generation.”

And, of course, Jenkins was father to UNO. His theological concerns often took a backseat to keeping OU solvent. Asked how many hours he worked, Jenkins once replied, “Well, I’ve averaged from 12 to 14 for so long I’ve forgotten. It has agreed with me. I have never been seriously handicapped by sickness.”

He had opportunities to leave. The American Bible Society asked him to become its secretary. Southern University offered him its presidency, as did San Pablo University in South America. In 1920, the Presbyterian Seminary of Louisville, Kentucky, recruited him as president at an annual salary of $4,000.

Jenkins declined — he was devoted to seeing his university grow and prosper.

He never saw that day, but it came nonetheless.

“Tremendous growth,” Daniel Jr. said during his 1997 visit. His father, he said, “would be amazed” at the changes. “All the buildings and contributions people have made to it. I think he’d be pleased.”

His father’s Bee-News obituary noted that Jenkins “built a monument in the hearts of men by his inspiring words and example.”

“The University of Omaha will endure, a visible and outward evidence of his great labor and devotion. Students there should achieve much, for its founder set a noble example to inspire them to their very utmost endeavor.”

Come this fall, students, faculty and staff will know just who to thank for such inspiration and example.