In 1927, the College's fifth president, Frederick Bertrand Robinson, former dean of the School of Business, took over when President Mezes retired due to ill health. The subsequent Depression-era would have been a difficult time for any college president, but the combination of City's feisty, ideologically-driven student body and a hot-tempered, conservative administrator proved a recipe for conflict. For a decade, political demonstrations were common. Strife was a fact of life at the College. Enemies of public higher education were quick to dub CCNY "the little Red schoolhouse."