Grayson L. Kirk

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Grayson L. Kirk
14th President of Columbia University
In office
1953–1968
Preceded byDwight D. Eisenhower
Succeeded byAndrew W. Cordier
Personal details
Born
Grayson Louis Kirk

(1903-10-12)October 12, 1903
Jeffersonville, Ohio, U.S.
DiedNovember 21, 1997(1997-11-21) (aged 94)
Yonkers, New York, U.S.

Grayson Louis Kirk (October 12, 1903 – November 21, 1997) was an American

State Department and instrumental in the formation of the United Nations
.

Early life

Kirk was born to a farmer and schoolteacher in

B&O Railroad
, in 1925. They raised one son, John Grayson.

After receiving his doctorate, Kirk spent the next decade on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He completed

Columbia University

(1956)

In 1940, Kirk was appointed to the faculty of Columbia University as an

United Nations Charter
was signed.

Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Kirk as the university's provost in 1949. In 1951, when Eisenhower took leave to serve as Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Kirk became acting president of the university. He assumed the presidency in earnest in 1953 after Eisenhower was sworn in as President of the United States.

During his tenure at Columbia, he quadrupled the university's endowment, added a dozen new buildings to the Morningside Heights campus, and doubled the university library's holdings. However, the university's academic standing gradually eroded during his tenure vis-à-vis such ascendent institutions as Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, leading historian Robert McCaughey to characterize the epoch as the "afternoon on the Hudson."[2]

Kirk's relationship with the student body began to degenerate in the early 1960s as students got caught up in the civil rights and anti-war movements and began to protest openly on campus. In 1959, Kirk started to pursue the construction of a gymnasium suitable for intercollegiate sports competition. Construction was delayed for several years due to lack of funds, during which time community resentment over the university's crowding out its poorer neighbors festered. When construction began in February, 1968, Harlem community activists and civil rights figures protested vigorously enough for the university to fence off the site and post a police guard.

Also in 1959, Kirk entered Columbia into its relationship with the

Students for a Democratic Society
, nearly a decade later.

The university and Kirk came under fire in 1967 for attempting to patent and promote a "healthier" cigarette filter developed by New Jersey chemist Robert Louis Strickman.[3] Questions regarding the filter's effectiveness began to surface just before Kirk was to testify before Congress as to its benefits.

On April 23, 1968, student protesters began what would become an eight-day occupation of five university buildings and the president's office. Students were protesting the university's affiliation with the Institute for Defense Analyses and its plans to construct a new gymnasium in Morningside Park that had one entrance for Columbia students and faculty and another entrance for members of the neighboring West Harlem community, who would not have access to all of the facilities.[4] Kirk initially agreed to address some of the protesters demands, but ultimately filed trespass charges against them and called in police to clear the occupied buildings. After the incident, Kirk resisted calls for his resignation, but stayed away from graduation and eventually announced his retirement before the start of the next academic year. In 1974, a newly constructed gymnasium finally opened.[5]

Later years

Grave of Grayson L. Kirk and his wife Marion Sands Kirk at Fairview Cemetery in Jeffersonville, Ohio.

After relinquishing the presidency, Kirk completed terms on the

International Relations (a position he had held since 1959) before retiring in 1973.[6] He had also been elected to the American Philosophical Society (1954) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1959).[7][8]

Kirk died in his sleep at the Plashbourne Estate (where he had resided since 1973) in Yonkers, New York in 1997.[9] He is buried next to his wife Marion Sands Kirk (May 6, 1904 – May 17, 1996) at Fairview Cemetery in Jeffersonville, Ohio.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Columbia University Authentication".
  2. .
  3. ^ Rosenfeld, Albert. "A New Cigarette Filter...a University's Dilemma," LIFE (magazine), July 28, 1967.
  4. ^ Blakemore, Erin (April 20, 2018). "How Columbia's Student Uprising of 1968 Was Sparked by a Segregated Gym". History Channel.
  5. ^ "How Columbia's Student Uprising of 1968 Was Sparked by a Segregated Gym". New York Times. September 23, 1974.
  6. ^ "Columbia University Authentication".
  7. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-01-26.
  8. ^ "Grayson Louis Kirk". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2023-01-26.
  9. ^ Phillip Seven Esser and Paul Graziano (August 2006). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Plashbourne Estate". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Archived from the original on 2011-09-14. Retrieved 2011-01-01.

External links

Academic offices
Preceded by President of Columbia University
1953–1968
Succeeded by