September
5, 2003
In
Memoriam: President David Truman, 1913-2003
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Photo:
Courtesy of MHC Archives and Special Collections
Former
MHC President David Bicknell Truman |
David Bicknell Truman,
90, who served as president of Mount Holyoke College from 1969
to 1978, died Thursday, August 28, in Sarasota, Florida, where
he had lived for the past 15 years.
Educated at Amherst
College and the University of Chicago, where he received a doctorate
in political science, Truman taught at Bennington, Cornell, Harvard,
Yale, Williams, and Columbia University. At Columbia, he served
as professor of government, dean of Columbia College, and, from
1967 to 1969, as vice president and provost of Columbia University.
During Truman's presidency
at Mount Holyoke, the College reconfirmed its commitment to women's
education through a historic vote by the board of trustees in
November 1971. He also carried forward the College's then incipient
commitment to enrolling students of color, and instituted January
Term and other curricular changes.
"David Truman
was an exemplary individual and distinguished scholar who served
Mount Holyoke College as an extremely effective leader,"
said current Mount Holyoke President Joanne V. Creighton. "His
commitment to the liberal arts, to women’s education, and
to aggressively recruiting students of color ensured the ongoing
strength and academic excellence of our institution. He touched
many lives both in higher education and throughout this College
and its alumnae. The Mount Holyoke community joins together in
mourning his passing."
Truman was also a
highly regarded scholar who wrote a number of important books
about the American political system, including Administrative
Decentralization (1940), The Governmental Process (1951),
and The Congressional Party (1959).
He was born on June
1, 1913, in Evanston, Illinois. In 1939, he married Elinor Griffenhagen,
who survives him. He is also survived by his son, Edwin M. Truman,
and daughter-in-law, Tracy Philbrick Truman '63, of Chevy Chase,
Maryland; two grandchildren; and a great granddaughter.
In addition to his
distinguished career in academe, Truman served in the U.S. Navy,
working under the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World War II, and held
several positions with the U.S. government. His government assignments
included work with the FCC and Department of Agriculture; he was
also a member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships
from 1975 to 1977. He received a number of honorary degrees and
served on the boards of many organizations. From 1978 to 1979,
he was the president of the Russell Sage Foundation.
A Guggenheim fellow
from 1955 to 1956, Truman was a fellow with the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Political Science
Association, where he served as president from 1964 to 1965; he
was also a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Truman was president
at Mount Holyoke during a time when the College and other leading
institutions were actively seeking to bring students of color
to campuses that, before the late 1960s, were almost exclusively
white. In a 1976 Convocation address, "The American Dilemma
Revisited," Truman, looking back over the then 200-year panorama
of U.S. history, said, "Over our history the gaps between
the system of ideals and the performance of the society have been
many. They are represented by the Battle of the Little Bighorn,
whose centennial occurred this summer, and by the confinement
in concentration camps during World War II of American citizens
of Japanese ancestry, which is closer to us. But none has or has
had the enormous and pervasive destructiveness of the crime of
slavery and its sequel in the persistent betrayal of faith through
racial discrimination."
According to a 1978
article in Mount Holyoke Now, a College publication:
"When asked about
what he considers the most important things he has done during
his nine years as Mount Holyoke's president, [Truman] demurs and
says that a president doesn't do, that it is the faculty, the
students, the staff. But those who have watched see it another
way. They see the decision to remain a college for women made
at a time when the trend was moving strongly toward coeducation,
a decision which Truman championed and which not only gave a focus
and a special commitment to Mount Holyoke, but was a cohesive
force and a cause of pride on campus and among alumnae."
Both at Columbia and
Mount Holyoke, Truman was involved in dealing with the significant
student unrest of the late 1960s and 1970s. At both campuses he
faced student protests and takeovers regarding such difficult
issues as race and the Vietnam War. Despite these challenges,
which were common on college campuses during the Vietnam Era,
Truman left a lasting legacy as a warm and caring leader.
"I put President
Truman on a pedestal," observed Mary E. Tuttle, who served
under Truman as assistant to the president and secretary of the
board of trustees. "He had an amazing capacity to listen
to someone, even if he might not agree with them. He tried to
understand every point of view. His ability to communicate with--and
to understand--students was remarkable. His contribution to Mount
Holyoke was extraordinary."
In 1977, Mount Holyoke
trustees endowed the David B. Truman chair for academic excellence
and funded it with $750,000. Professor of Physics John Durso last
held this chair from 1992 until 2001, when he retired.
The College will hold
a memorial ceremony in upcoming weeks, while the family is also
planning a service in Sarasota at a future date. The family has
asked that memorial donations be made to the Plymouth Harbor Endowment
Fund (700 John Ringling Blvd., Sarasota, FL 34236), to Mount Holyoke
College, or to Amherst College.
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