Background
American psychologist and president of Yale University from 1921 to 1937. He was born at Burlington, Vt., on May 8, 1869. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1890. After studying philosophy there, at Harvard, and in Germany, and a year's teaching at the University of Minnesota, he joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1894 as head of the psychology courses and laboratory. He was the director of research in functional psychology (of which he is considered a founder) and published numerous papers, as well as two textbooks, Psychology (1904) and Chapters in Modern Psychology (1912).. William James and John Dewey were important influences on Angell's ideas, and he in turn influenced John B. Watson, the founder of behaviorism, who was one of his students.
In 1921 Angell became the first nonalumnus president of Yale since 1766. In his 16 years in that post, a steady, cautious concentration of authority and coordination of schools and faculties enabled the increasing resources of the university to be used most effectively for physical expansion and academic advance. Endowments increased fourfold, to more than $105,000,000, and over $50,000,000 was available for the building program. The great Sterling bequest and other gifts endowed professorships, scholarships, and fellowships, and built the chemistry laboratory, the library, and new quarters for the medical, law, graduate, and divinity schools. Between 1923 and 1932 the School of Nursing, the School of Engineering, the Institute of Psychology (later Human Relations), and the Drama Department were established, and the university theater, art gallery, and gymnasium were built. The residential colleges, endowed in 1930 by the Harkness gift, promised new social and intellectual opportunities to undergraduates. Angell retired in 1937, confident that the university was "on the march." A collection of Angell's addresses, American Education, was published in 1937. He died at Hamden, Conn., on Mar. 4, 1949.