Dr. Lloyd Cofer: A Look Back at a Leader of the CMU Board of Trustees

by Arianna Day

Dr. Lloyd McGee Cofer—the name might be familiar around the Central Michigan University campus. As we wrap up Black History Month and reflect on the 60th anniversary of the first meeting of the CMU Board of Trustees, we share more about this leader who helped shape CMU for nearly two decades. 

Dr. Cofer was born in New York, New York, December 18, 1905. He went to college at Tufts College during the fall of 1924. While he was there, he joined Alpha Phi Alpha, the oldest African American Greek letter fraternity in the U.S.

Dr. Cofer graduated from Tufts in 1928 with his Bachelor of Science degree and then served as the Dean of Men as Fisk University from 1930-34. In 1934, he was hired in the Detroit public schools, becoming the first Black man to be a counselor in Detroit school system. Later, Dr. Cofer served as assistant principal of two different schools and, in 1965, he became Principal at Mackenzie High School. During his more than 30-year tenure with the Detroit public schools, he earned his master’s degree at Columbia University and his doctorate degree at Wayne State University.

Dr. Cofer left the Detroit Public Schools in 1967 to work at Michigan State University, where he served in many capacities focused on increasing the recruitment and retention of Black students until his retirement in 1979. At MSU, he created a development program as well as special services for minority students at MSU (MSU News May 27, 1971, p. 6). 

Dr. Lloyd M. Cofer at the first
CMU Board of Trustees Meeting, February 24, 1964

For Central Michigan University, Dr. Cofer is most well-known as a charter member of the Board of Trustees and the namesake of a long-standing scholarship for Central students. On the 60th anniversary of the first meeting of Central Michigan University’s Board of Trustees, we recognize Dr. Cofer’s contributions to the Board.

In February 1964, Dr. Cofer was among the first group of eight who was appointed by Michigan Governor George Romney to CMU’s newly formed Board of Trustees. Joining him on this group that met for the first time on February 24, 1964 were Jean Backus, Willis Campbell, Katharine Hafsted, Lawrence Rahilly, E. Allan Morrow, John Sivier, and Walter Wightman.

During his 17 years of service on the Board of Trustees, Dr. Cofer was elected chair three times, the first time being in 1967, just three years after his initial appointment. Among the major changes that Dr. Cofer oversaw as a Trustee, Cofer was the Chair of the Board that approved Amendment V to the Student Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, which abolished the practice of in loco parentis. Cofer supported the students in their efforts to assert their rights and to demand that the university stop acting “in place of the parents” and monitoring students' behavior.

Many other developments and progress occurred during his 17 years on the Board including:

• CMU moving up to Division I in NCAA competition, 
• CMU beginning an effort to increase the recruitment of Black faculty and Black students, as well as teaching Black studies courses, 
• CMU constructing many new buildings (the Towers, the Park Library, the North Art Studio, Anspach, Pearce, and Moore Halls, and much more), 
• and the beginnings of labor negotiations between the university and the Faculty Association.

Outside of education and higher learning, Dr Cofer found the love of his life in Evelynne J Jones. Together, they had two daughters and they remained married until her death in 1972.

Dr. Cofer was always devoted to students, working up to the time of his death on January 11, 1980. In death, he was remembered for his contributions to education in Michigan and across the U.S. Rev. Malcolm G. Dade of St. Cyprian said of Dr. Cofer, “Lloyd never went for a job; every position sought him.” Horace C. King, MSU Registrar and Professor, said, “[Dr. Cofer] influenced higher education not only in the state of Michigan but also on a national level.”

Two weeks after the passing of Dr. Lloyd M. Cofer, the CMU Board of Trustees established the Lloyd M. Cofer scholarship. Created in 1980 in his memory, the scholarship provided for full tuition and fees awarded to a deserving student who is the graduate of a public high school of the city of Detroit. The scholarship still exists and today and "recognizes a select few Detroit high school graduates for their dedication to the advancement of underrepresented groups in America."

In Search of Sibouin

by Tristen Woodruff

When working on historical projects, the need to conduct at least some minimal sleuthing is part and parcel within the line of work. This sleuthing can range from the simple fact check, to a slightly more in-depth academic journal cross reference. Rarely, however, is the rabbit hole of research followed to its proverbial wonderland. In the case of the search for the a set of islands in the Great Lakes, however, the journey to wonderland became the only way to determine the facts of the matter.

While working on the metadata for the letters of noted Civil War officer Orlando M. Poe, I was drawn down this path. Prior to the Civil War and his promotion to Major General, Orlando Poe served as Second Lieutenant of the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. The Topographical Engineers were a part of a large survey of the Great Lakes region prior to the War and were notable for the many islands and shorelines they mapped during this time. During the summer of 1857, Poe was assigned to chart and map the eastern portions of the Saginaw Bay. This would lead to a direction from his commander, George G. Meade, to map a set of islands identified by Meade.

Meade's longhand: "the ??? islands"

The problem was that, in Meade’s longhand, what were the name of the islands. Did they begin with an L, or an I? Was the second letter an E? The word ends in “o-u-i-n,” but what islands in and around Saginaw Bay end in “o-u-i-n”?

Saginaw Bay from J.H. Colton's
Map of Michigan, 1857.
Click to enlarge.

Looking at a map today, the letters on the page seemed odd because there are no contemporary islands on current maps with similar letters. When looking into maps of the 1850s, a name that seemed similar to Meade’s writing did not appear, either. Thus began the spiral into figuring out the true name of these islands. The first place needed to look was in the official reports of the Great Lakes Survey that the Corps released a few years after Poe was first instructed to map these islands. In these reports, I searched for Poe’s name to see the location where Meade reported that he sent Poe. With this, there was, in fact, a location that Poe was sent with the name ‘Sibouin’ Islands. But, there was no map to point to them.

The only known location of these mystery islands, based on the letters and the report, was that they were in the eastern portion of the Saginaw Bay. Naturally, knowing the general location of the islands, I attempted to search the national and local newspapers to find them, including the millions of scanned pages available through the the Library of Congress and the Clarke Historical Library, but to no avail. Surely then, they would exist in the national archives! Still no such luck. Even looking at the amazing collection of maps provided by the David Rumsey Map Collection, no islands named ‘Sibouin’ were mapped in the eastern Saginaw Bay. Finally, I searched “Sibouin” in Hathi Trust, which includes numerous US and State of Michigan government reports among the 17+ million digitized volumes in the database, and there was only one document about a set of islands in the Great Lakes with the name “Sibouin” – Meade’s report mentioning where he sent Poe.

Armed with the knowledge that George Meade was the only person referring to these islands with the name “Sibouin,” I returned back to the report for more clues. Near these islands, Poe was instructed to map the wider “Wild Fowl Bay.” This was helpful as it even further narrowed our search, but there was still no record of the mystery islands in Wild Fowl Bay. I then moved to the amazing Hathi Trust again in search of “Sibouin” (or variations of the spelling). Here would be the key to this whole mystery, the Report of the Chief of Engineers of 1860 had a reference to the “Sebouin Islands.” The report also listed latitude and longitude for the mystery islands, finally!

Map of Fairhaven Township,
from the Atlas of Huron County,
Michigan, 1890. Click to enlarge.

Using the maps of David Rumsey, current map websites, and the coordinates of the Chief of Engineers report, I could divine a location. The answer was revealed, hiding in plain sight right in Wild Fowl Bay. The Sibouin Islands were in fact the modern day Maisou Islands of Huron County. These islands are now apart of the Wild Fowl Bay State Wildlife Area and are no longer owned privately, but back in the 1850s they had been called Kate Chai Island and North Island. These islands had gone through many name changes since the 1850s, and that had done a good job of obfuscating their prior titles. These name changes, however, would eventually be peeled back, due in large part to the help and skills of Bryan Whitledge, without whose guidance I would not have fully figured out even the name of these mystery islands that seem to exist only now as ghosts of the documents of the 1850s.