Mesa’s attainment of university status last summer marked the biggest change in the school’s 87-year history since the initial change from a junior college to a baccalaureate degree granting college in the 1970’s.

The school was then led by President Dr. Theodore Albers whose steadfast dedication and work ethic would ultimately lead to a successful accreditation, four years after the initial discussion for it had begun.

The move, while favored by a majority, was not without many condemnations from people within the school as well as the surrounding community. It was not easy for Dr. Albers and his family, including his wife, Maxine, who has since remarried after Albers’ death in 2002 and taken the last name Carnes.

“I remember the trauma, and how busy he was. He was gone a lot of the time and he was being criticized, a lot, which was probably more traumatic for his family then it was for him,” Carnes said. “He was so busy and dedicated to what he was doing, that I don’t think it troubled him a lot, he just knew it was just part of the job.”

Never one to let students’ opinions go unheard, Dr. Albers held many meetings that were open to the community and his door was always open to students who wished to speak with him about any and all issues.

Due to this collaboration with the community, he considered the change to be a team effort. His health declined and a rare heart condition eventually led him to retire in the summer of 1974, but not before overseeing the final steps of Mesa’s transformation into the baccalaureate institution he had fought so hard for during his time as the college’s president.

“Ted was not one to take credit for himself. He worked with people well and he just thought it was a team effort.” Carnes said, “He really ruined his health during that time, because he didn’t know (of the heart condition) until he went through a lot of tests earlier in February of that year. After that, Ted took control of his own health, he was given six months to live and he lived 28 years.”

Although Dr. Albers did not live to see Mesa achieve University status, there is no doubt how he might feel about it. Mrs. Carnes said that she knows he would be pleased, because they are doing a lot of those things that Dr. Albers planned for Mesa. His vision, even before he was president, was that the school would develop into a University.

His legacy and memory at Mesa will be remembered thanks to the 1992 dedication of the formerly named “Old Elm Hall”  to the now more familiar “Albers Hall,” as well as the formation of a scholarship in his name. Nothing could be more fitting than that for a man who risked his very health at helping the college realize its potential.