On June 19, 1950, all were shocked when President Price handed staff his resignation letter. He and
Mrs. Price had been ill and friends and advisors counseled him to slow down. His successor, J.W. Maucker, former Dean of the College of Education at the University of Montana, took charge of the 2,688 students (by 1959, this number would reach 3,428). At his inauguration, Maucker expressed the hope that the Iowa State Teachers College would “maintain high standards of scholarship, a high moral tone, and a high intellectual tone” while empowering students “to reach maturity, to be able and willing to stand on their own feet and speak their own minds on current issues.” During the first ten years of the Maucker administration, tuition rose from $35 per quarter in 1950 to $100 per quarter in 1959.

Maucker dealt with his first scandal three years after his inaguration when he, along with two state
representatives, a Black Hawk County senator, and the Waterloo post of the American Legion were all sent an anonymous letter claiming that several ISTC faculty members in the Department of English and Speech taught and advocated Communist and atheist doctrines. The State Board of Education investigated the charges and found no evidence of subversion. Philosophy and Humanities professor Josef Fox, publicly stated in the Des Moines Register that he had no connection to any Communist group and that the anonymous charge was false. Still, the Red Scare was in full effect. ISTC faculty removed materials such as The Communist Manifesto from the Humanities reading list, stating that undergraduate students were not intellectually equipped to understand or analyze the text. A student opinion writer in the College Eye, meanwhile, imagined Communists taking over the campus. “Would it be possible for a Communistic minority to control our campus? The answer to these questions are ‘Possibly’ and ‘Yes,’”the writer mused.

Meanwhile, civil rights debates raged on campus. After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling banned public school segregation, and the subsequent school integration crisis in Little Rock three years later, ISTC students and faculty spoke out against white supremicists’ efforts to block the Little Rock Nine students from attending school. “It is time we proclaimed–for the world and for our own consciences’ satisfaction–that we are first and always educators of human beings,” wrote the school newspaper.

Amidst the political turmoil, ISTC students still found time for relaxation and entertainment. Sport and recreation options included bicycling, golf, and outdoor cooking and picnicking. Students also listened to their record players and transistor radios, and carried the radios around campus. Beloved tunes from the 1950s included Patti Page's rendition of "Tennessee Waltz," Rosemary Clooney's "Come-on-a My House," Jo Strafford's "Shrimp Boats," and Elvis Presley's hits like "Don't Be Cruel" and "Love Me Tender."

During this tumultuous era, the campus continued to expand with a new Laboratory School (1950) and two new housing complexes. A new women’s dorm, Campbell Hall (1950), became necessary after the state of Iowa began to require two full years of college training for teacher certification, as opposed to twelve weeks. The College Courts (1955) expanded options for married students; residents appreciated newly built apartment units complete with a shower/bathtub combination and play-areas for their children. Price Laboratory School’s construction began in 1950, but was complicated by delays, lawsuits, and post-war inflation. The lab school’s fieldhouse, used for experiments and other hands-on activities, was completed in 1957. Dwight Curris, director of the school, said that the school’s two main goals were to provide the best education to children attending the school and to offer the best laboratory experiences for teachers in training.