President Harwell Goodwin Davis, History of Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama

Howard's fiscal health seemed to be steadily improving from the depths of the depression. With the considerable guidance of prominent businessman Frank Park Samford, newly-elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees, the college continued to chip away at its debt and maintain financial stability. The freshman class of 1940 was 10 percent larger than the previous year's, and a Howard centennial fundraising campaign aimed to eliminate all of Howard's debt and add campus facilities to accommodate the increasing number of students. But as the college prepared to celebrate its founding, war once again threatened its survival. Even before the U.S. entered the war against the Axis, enrollment slumped and some faculty departed for military service.

How could the college survive with its young men and faculty at war? Davis answered that question not by trying to remove the college from the path of the mobilizing national war machine, but by making the college a valuable part of its mechanism. First, Howard agreed to host a Civilian Pilot Training Program whose cadets would study alongside the college's other students. A Navy Air Corp program followed soon after and in 1943 the Navy awarded Howard a contract to host one of its large V-12 training programs. This brought the college the money and male students it needed to survive.

In fact, the college thrived. So valuable was the V-12 contract that in 1944 Howard enjoyed its best fiscal health in a decade. By 1945, Howard was out of debt, thanks not only to the V-12 program but also to continued support from state Baptists. The Navy program ended in fall 1945, and although Howard had to return some of the V-12 funds, Davis set aside much of the remaining wartime windfall in the hope that it would allow Howard to relocate.

Relocation of Howard College from East Lake had been discussed openly almost since the college relocated from Marion in 1887. Although advocacy for relocation had typically run afoul of alumni, it was clear by the 1940s that Howard must either have more room to grow or simply stop growing. The problems of the East Lake campus became even more acute as Howard reaped the rewards of the GI Bill, which gave returning veterans the opportunity to continue disrupted educations or afford education that would otherwise have been beyond their reach, financially.