Prince Lucien Campbell was born on October 6, 1861 in Newmarket, Missouri, United States; of Scotch and Irish descent, the son of Thomas Franklin and Jane Eliza (Campbell) Campbell. The family removed in 1869 to Monmouth, Oregon, where his father became president of Christian College.
Prince Campbell graduated from Christian College in 1879. He taught, reported for the Kansas City Star, and attended Harvard, graduating in 1886.
From 1886 to 1889 Campbell was teacher of ancient languages and pedagogy in the State Normal School at Monmouth, successor to Christian College. Thereafter, to 1902, he was president of that institution. In 1902 he became president of the University of Oregon.
The educational problems which he was called upon to meet as president of the University of Oregon were, at the outset, similar to those encountered by such institutions generally. Among these were the insignificant financial resources and limited student patronage. Campbell, during the previous four or five years, as a trusted adviser of legislative committees, had aided in establishing the public high-school system, and in the rapid multiplication of high schools he found the best assurance of student support for the university. Candidates soon began applying for admission in more generous numbers. Eventually the legislature was induced to enlarge the university's grant. But at this point the president encountered the newly adopted "Initiative and Referendum" amendment to the state constitution. This, under the existing conditions, revolutionized the history of public support for liberal higher education. No American educator had ever been called upon to present the case for higher education to the entire electorate. That is what Campbell was obliged to do, not once, but repeatedly, ultimately gaining the assured support of the people themselves. In this work, whose result was to render more secure every state-supported university in America, Campbell's inspiring personality was a major asset.
As the head of the university he made a great contribution into the its development and prosperity. Both Pacific University and the University of Colorado awarded Campbell honorary doctorates. Campbell was "noted for his devotion to building esprit-de-corps within the university", and for treating all faculty with equal respect, regardless of rank. The oldest public building in Oregon, Campbell Hall on the campus of Western Oregon University, was formally named in 1936 in honor of its second and fourth presidents, Rev. Thomas Franklin Campbell and his son Prince Lucien Campbell. Prince Lucien Campbell Hall (abbreviated "PLC") is the only high-rise University of Oregon building, the tallest on campus.
Combined with rare practical judgment, organizing ability, and a positive genius for maintaining the morale of his forces, he had an abiding faith in the necessity of liberal culture for a democracy and great enthusiasm in presenting the argument to the voters. He was a man of splendid physique, five feet nine in stature and weighing 180 pounds, with handsome florid countenance, glowing dark eyes, black hair and mustache. He was fond of society, a noted raconteur, a gay, charming companion, a lover of his kind.
Quotes from others about the person
The day following his death on August 24, 1925, the Eugene Guard carried an editorial page tribute to Campbell, which said in part:
He was unusual. .. Nature had given him the combination of a great intellectuality, a marvelous magnetic personality, a tireless energy, and withall a quality of personal humility and sef-immolation as rare as it is splendid. .. He believed in the rising generation as the hope of the land, and his faith in that generation never faltered. .. His whole active life was spent in the advancement of education, culture, and progress in Oregon.
On September 12, 1887, he was married to Eugenia J. Zieber of Forest Grove, Oregon. On August 20, 1908, his first wife having died in February 1891, he was married to Susan A. Church of San Francisco.
