Background
Gates was born on October 18, 1857 in Chicago, Illinois, the third son of Caleb Gates and Elizabeth (Hutchins) Gates.
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Caleb Frank Gates
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Education
Gates' early education was a mixture of private schooling and parental tutoring, and in September 1866 he entered the preparatory department of Wheaton College. Following graduation from Beloit College in 1877, he worked in a bank with his father but soon decided to study for the ministry, graduating from the Chicago Theological School in 1881. At an early age Caleb's mother had taught him the Greek alphabet - the early development of a linguistic talent which later mastered Arabic, Armenian, and Turkish. In 1897 Knox College conferred on him an honorary D. D. and in 1899 the University of Edinburgh gave him an honorary LL. D.
Career
Following graduation in 1881 Gates accepted an invitation from the American Board of Foreign Missions to join their station at Mardin in Turkey. He returned to the United States in 1883, and together with his wife moved to Mardin, where, from 1885 to 1894, he was connected with a boys' high school. In 1894 he was elected to succeed Dr. Crosby H. Wheeler as president of Euphrates College at Harput. When trouble broke out in the area two years later, eight of the school's twelve buildings were burned; yet Caleb Gates carried on and not only rebuilt the school but doubled the size of the student body. Though Harput lay deep in remote Anatolia, Gates's work did not go unnoticed. John S. Kennedy, chairman of the board of Robert College, located in Constantinople, began to press Gates to accept the presidency of that institution. In 1903 Gates accepted that post and moved to Constantinople with his family. Gates was forty-six when he arrived at Robert College. Despite the fact that the Ottoman government frowned upon Turkish students attending Western schools, the first pupil graduated from Robert just before Gates arrived. Gates made the mastering of the Turkish language one of his first priorities. This helped to win him the respect of the government and to smooth the way in many a difficulty. On October 31, 1909, Kennedy died, leaving a bequest of $1. 5 million to Robert College. Gates was summoned to New York to discuss with the board how this money should be used. He proposed the establishment of an engineering school, explaining that the only engineering school in the Ottoman Empire was restricted to the military and taught only civil engineering. The country, he felt, badly needed a school that would teach electrical, mechanical, mining, and civil engineering. Gates's proposal was accepted and the Robert College School of Engineering opened in September 1912. During World War I, in which Turkey was allied with the Central Powers, the American ambassador advised all Americans in Turkey to leave the country. Although most of the Robert College faculty did so, he stayed on along with the dean of engineering and a few other diehards. Several times in the next few years the college buildings came close to being taken over for the military. Each time Gates succeeded in gaining permission to keep the college open. That Robert College survived World War I was due in large measure to his courage. After the armistice of 1918 ended, Gates spent a year in the United States but then returned to Turkey to face the business crisis of 1921-1922 and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. As the armies of Kemal Ataturk swept across the Anatolian plateau, the fear in Constantinople was that the Bosphorus area would become a battleground. Thousands fled the city but Robert College remained open. In 1922-1923 Gates served as adviser to Adm. Mark Bristol, who had been American high commissioner in Constantinople, at the peace conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. Adm. Bristol had been named one of the American representatives. On August 6, 1923, President Coolidge signed the treaty which restored commerce and relations between the two countries. Gates was a principal in the long battle for ratification, which failed in the United States Senate. Gates's diplomacy and fluent Turkish helped to smooth out the situation in Turkey in the face of this rebuff. The new Turkish Republic was established by Ataturk in 1923. He was determined to modernize the country and it is not surprising that 1924 saw the first large influx of Turkish students to Robert College. Caleb Gates retired in 1932 at the age of seventy-four. He returned to Turkey in 1938 for the seventy-fifth anniversary of the college. In his twenty-six years as president, he had built six new buildings, as well as additional faculty housing, and expanded the campus property from a few acres to more than a hundred. In 1955, Gates relocated to Santa Rosa, California, to operate the Cedar Shake Guest Lodge. There, on the eve of his 52nd birthday, December 21, 1955 Gates died of a heart attack.
Achievements
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Gates is best remembered as Chancellor of the University of Denver. Under his leadership, enrollments rose by 57 percent compared to the pre-war enrollments of 1939, and the number of veterans on campus rose to 60 percent. He presided over the creation of the university's School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, School of Architecture and Planning, and School of Aeronautics.
Personality
Gates was short of stature and of stocky build. He was a deeply religious man with a keen sense of social justice, who, during World War I, organized a soup kitchen on the campus to help feed the local villagers. He was a man of strong will, a superb diplomat, with a keen sense of humor. He was an excellent athlete and from time to time could be found in the gymnasium with the students.
Connections
On May 31 1883 Gates married Mary Ellen Moore of Chicago. Gates and his first wife divorced in 1954. In 1955, he married Mable Ridge.
References
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Born
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Died
April 9, 1946 (aged 89) -
Nationality
American