Ernest Martin Hopkins (November 6, 1877 – August 13, 1964) served as the 11th President of
Dartmouth College from 1916 to 1945.
Dartmouth Presidency
At the dedication of the
Hopkins Center for the Arts in 1962, the speaker, then-
Governor of New York
The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has ...
Nelson A. Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979), sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky, was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of t ...
, turned to the man for whom the building was named and said, "I came to Dartmouth because of you."
As a young man growing up in
New Hampshire, he worked in a
granite quarry and decided to attend Dartmouth for his undergraduate education over the stern objections of his father, who had attended
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and wanted his son to also attend Harvard. However, after graduating from
Worcester Academy in 1896, Hopkins matriculated to
Dartmouth Dartmouth may refer to:
Places
* Dartmouth, Devon, England
** Dartmouth Harbour
* Dartmouth, Massachusetts, United States
* Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
* Dartmouth, Victoria, Australia
Institutions
* Dartmouth College, Ivy League university i ...
. So strong were the impressions he made in
Hanover during his student years that then-President
William Jewett Tucker employed him as a clerk and supported him with a scholarship during the depression of the 1890s.
A Dartmouth graduate himself (class of 1901), Ernest Martin Hopkins did not fit the typical mold of a college president when he was selected by the Trustees in 1916. He was not an academic, had never held a teaching position and had spent the bulk of his career in the business world. But any doubts about his leadership qualities were quickly dispelled and he showed himself to be a champion of academic freedom in an era when that basic tenet of
scholarship was under attack.
The administration of Ernest Martin Hopkins spanned two world wars, and he was called to serve his country on several occasions. In
World War I, he was named Assistant Secretary of War for Industrial Relations and served in the Office of Production and Management at the outset of
World War II. President Hopkins was the recipient of at least 15 honorary degrees, and, while president of Dartmouth, declined an invitation to serve as president of the
University of Chicago in order, according to a 1964 obituary in ''
The New York Times'', "to continue development of his ideas of what an undergraduate liberal arts education should encompass." The articulation of these ideas during the Hopkins administration has become an enduring legacy that continues at Dartmouth today.
References
External links
*
President of Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth CollegeWheelock Succession
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hopkins, Ernest Martin
Worcester Academy alumni
Dartmouth College alumni
Presidents of Dartmouth College
1964 deaths
1877 births
People from Mount Desert Island
People from Dunbarton, New Hampshire