Dr. Delos Poe Culp became President of The University of West Alabama (then State Teachers College at Livingston) during the relative calm of the fifties and ended his nine-year term just as the turbulence of the sixties was taking hold on college campuses across the country.

Dr. Culp was an excellent manager of educational finances and of the University’s physical plant. It was said that the University’s buildings and automobiles had never received the attention that they did while Dr. Culp was president. He was known for his talent for "stretching a dollar," and he applied that talent to everyday expenses and to building construction. Faculty Apartments, Patterson Apartments, Julia Tutwiler Library, Young Cafeteria, Sisk Hall, and Pruitt Hall were all built during Dr. Culp’s term. The west wing of Bibb Graves Hall was also constructed during this period, and construction was completed on the President’s home.

Another hallmark of Dr. Culp’s tenure was his attention to strengthening and expanding the academic area to reflect the University’s expanding role and mission in the region and in the state. The school achieved accreditation by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) during his tenure and was reaccredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). The State Board of Education granted state colleges the ability to give graduate work in education leading to a master’s degree, and such a program was started at Livingston in 1957, the same year the school’s name was changed to Livingston State College. The first master’s degrees were awarded in 1959.

Dr. Culp was actively involved in statewide efforts to improve higher education in Alabama. He served as Director of the Alabama Education Commission for the Alabama Legislature from 1957 – 1959, as president of the Alabama Association of College Administrators in 1960 and as president of the Alabama Education Association (AEA) in 1961. He also served as chairman of the Alabama Policies Commission from 1960 – 1962.

In the area of campus life, there was a marked growth of denominational religious groups on campus. A lay leader in the Methodist Church, Dr. Culp took great

pains to guard the moral and ethical lives of students. According to Ralph Lyon’s History of Livingston University, one school yearbook of the period "was withdrawn from circulation because some illustrations were said to be inappropriate—specifically some bathing beauties, the slit skirt of the beautiful and charming Homecoming Queen, and a girl in a frowsy costume stationed on a stairway smoking a cigarette."

Religious Emphasis Week was held every spring, with programs including vespers, speakers, and discussion groups. The Culp administration also added Recognition Day to the school calendar. Recognition Day included a campus wide assembly that recognized achievements of leader and organizations. This event was the forerunner of today’s traditional Honors Day held on the UWA campus each spring.

There was also a marked increase in the number of international students on campus during the Culp tenure, with students from Cuba, Venezuela, Panama, Korea, Iran and Iraq at Livingston during this time.

Dr. Culp was away from campus for part of the 1959-1960 school year on a special mission for the United States Government to the Philippine Islands. Despite campus unrest in many colleges during the early sixties, the only recorded student protest at Livingston during this time occurred after Dr. Culp’s return from the Philippines. In 1961 a student group assembled twice to protest what they considered inadequacies in the school cafeteria.

In 1963 Dr. Delos Culp left Livingston State College to become president of Alabama College (now the University of Montevallo).