Courtney Craig Smith

Background

He was born on December 20, 1916 in Winterset, Iowa, United States, the son of Samuel Craig Smith, a lawyer and banker, and Myrtle Dabney.

Education

He graduated from Roosevelt High School in Des Moines and won a scholarship to Harvard, from which he received his B. A. magna cum laude in English, in 1938. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, Oxford, in 1938-1939 and then, until 1943, was a teaching fellow and graduate student in English at Harvard, specializing in seventeenth-century and American literature. He received his M. A. in 1941 and his Ph. D. in 1944.

Career

Smith served in the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946, most of the time at Pensacola, Fla. As liaison officer for black personnel, he worked with energy and understanding to improve the treatment of blacks in that southern community.

From 1946 to 1953 he was an instructor and assistant professor of English at Princeton University. He served as national director of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Program in 1952-1953.

In 1953 he was appointed president of Swarthmore College; upon his inauguration. In the same year, he was also named American secretary of the Rhodes Scholarships, a post that had been held by Frank Aydelotte and John Nason, his two immediate predecessors as president of Swarthmore. He held both posts until his death. Aydelotte had made Swarthmore an academically demanding institution, though at the cost of some disaffection among older alumni. The disruptions of the World War II years had also contributed to a loss of momentum for the college. But Smith had an unshakable optimism that Swarthmore could combine the strengths of an exemplary liberal arts college and a university.

Smith wanted a first-class faculty, and he personally interviewed all candidates, seeking to appoint persons not only of intellectual power but also of "character. " Smith challenged Swarthmore students to reach his standards of intellect, character, and deportment. From the outset Smith was strikingly successful in his relations with the world beyond the campus: he raised a great deal of money from alumni and from foundations, and he helped lead a successful campaign to remove from the National Defense Education Act of 1958 the requirement that applicants file a "disclaimer" of belief in the overthrow of the United States government by violence, regarding such efforts as "mind control. " Near the end of his presidency, Smith supported a thorough reconsideration of Swarthmore's educational and administrative practices.

In the spring of 1968, Smith announced that in June 1969 he would resign from the presidency of Swarthmore to become president of the John and Mary Markle Foundation, of which he had been a trustee for fifteen years.

He died of a heart attack.

Achievements

• Courtney Craig Smith became one of the youngest college presidents in the United States. During his administration at Swarthmore College, he was markedly successful in raising salaries, reducing teaching loads, supporting a generous leave policy, building a modern science center, and securing an excellent library. He also was president of the John and Mary Markle Foundation, was responsible for an increase in the number of black students.

Views

Smith had an unshakable optimism that Swarthmore could combine the strengths of an exemplary liberal arts college and a university. Committed to reasoned discourse, he never doubted that all persons of goodwill would rally to the same standard.

Smith believed that a college was not a "democracy" of competing interest groups but a "corporation, " in which administrators, faculty, and students had distinctive obligations. This traditional view was challenged in many colleges in the 1960's.

He tried to persuade students to dress in a seemly manner and conform to Swarthmore's avowedly "conservative" social code. He saw little merit in the cries for student power, though he always listened to students' arguments and reasons.

He was strongly committed to a system of merit; probably even more deeply, he resented the decision of the black students to occupy the college admissions office and the willingness of some faculty members to urge capitulation - as it seemed to him - to power, not to reason.

Personality

He had penchant and talent for administration. He himself worked prodigiously long hours. He was a fastidious man.

Connections

On October 12, 1939, he married Elizabeth Bowden Proctor; they had three children.

Father:

Samuel Craig Smith

Mother:

Myrtle Dabney

Spouse:

Elizabeth Bowden Proctor