Spring Break
Administrator and alumnus retires after 51 years
Amy Wright
Issue date: 10/27/08 Section: News
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Recently retired administrator Leo Sweeney has seen UMKC through 51 years of invaluable service (not to mention his years as a student) and provides an example of the variety of assets our university offers its students.
Sweeney enrolled at UMKC in the fall of 1948, when it was still the private University of Kansas City (UKC). The student body was significantly smaller, with no more than 3,000 total students. Sweeney suggested enrollment in 1948 was at a peak in the number of veterans enrolled.
An Army veteran himself, Sweeney was drafted in the latter part of World War II and stayed in the service after the war ended.
He was brought to Kansas City to coordinate transportation for the return of the military deceased from overseas.
He remains proud of his work and grateful for the opportunities provided through military service.
"I was a young, 19-year-old Second Lieutenant in a Major's position," Sweeney said. "I thought it would be good experience, and it was."
Sweeney also served for more than 27 years in the active Army Reserves and is now a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel.
During Sweeney's education, the campus was considerably different than it is today. Founded as a small liberal arts college in 1933, the first class held just 264 students.
Various schools within what we know today as UMKC were added over the years, but they initially existed separately.
In 1957, Sweeney returned to UKC as the Director of Admissions. Over the next several years, the university forged through a series of financial difficulties and changes.
"In the spring of '63, I got a call from the bursar telling me they might not have enough money to meet the payroll that month," Sweeney recalled. "Every building on campus had been mortgaged. They'd gotten as much money from lending agencies and banks as they could."
Financial months like that one served to expedite the move to become part of the University of Missouri system in the fall of 1963, though Sweeney maintains there was a good number of staff who were staunchly opposed to the idea.
"UMKC has evolved into a true university, which is really quite different," he said. "Some people didn't like it, but it was a very good move to become a public university - definitely."
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