Gordon Keith Chalmers
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Gordon Keith Chalmers (7 February 1904 in
Waukesha, Wisconsin Waukesha ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 71,158 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located along the Fox River (Illinois River tributary), Fox River adjacent to th ...
– 8 May 1956 in
Hyannis, Massachusetts Hyannis is the largest of the seven villages in the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States. It is the commercial and transportation hub of Cape Cod and was designated an urban area at the 1990 census. Because of this, many refer to Hya ...
) was a scholar of seventeenth-century English thought and letters, president of
Rockford College Rockford or Rockfords may refer to: Places United States * Rockford, Alabama, a town * Rockford, Idaho, a census-designated place * Rockford, Illinois, a city, the largest municipality of this name * Rockford metropolitan area, Illinois, a Unite ...
and
Kenyon College Kenyon College ( ) is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1824 by Episcopal Bishop Philander Chase. It is the oldest private instituti ...
, and a national leader in American higher education.


Early life and education

The son of Wiliam Everett Chalmers and his wife Mary Dunklee Maynard, Gordon Chalmers attended
Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...
, where he graduated in 1925. Awarded a
Rhodes scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Established in 1902, it is ...
, he attended
Wadham College Wadham College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy Wadham, a ...
at
Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
for three years, earning his
bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...
in 1928 and his
master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...
in 1934. Returning to the United States, he entered
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, where he earned a
master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...
and his Ph.D. in 1933 with a three-volume thesis on "Sir Thomas Browne's thought and its relation to contemporary ideas". On 3 September 1929, he married the poet Roberta Teale Swartz, with whom he had three sons and a daughter.


Career

Chalmers was appointed as an instructor in English at
Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States. It is the oldest member of the h ...
in 1929, and was promoted to
assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...
in 1933. In 1934, he was selected as president of Rockford College and then was later selected as president of Kenyon College in 1937. He remained Kenyon's president until his sudden death at the age of 52. While at Kenyon, Chalmers was responsible for a remarkable transformation of the College, recruiting for it a wide range of prominent scholars. He developed a close friendship with
Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...
, who he brought to the college on a number of occasions. This relationship was no doubt aided by the fact that he worked with Lesley Frost Ballantine, Frost's daughter, while at Rockford College. He also had a close association with Kenyon English professor
John Crowe Ransom John Crowe Ransom (April 30, 1888 – July 3, 1974) was an American educator, scholar, literary critic, poet, essayist and editor. He is considered to be a founder of the New Criticism school of literary criticism. As a faculty member at Kenyon ...
. Among the achievements of Chalmers' administration at Kenyon was the establishment of the
Kenyon Review ''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959 in litera ...
. Through Chalmers, Kenyon also became the birthplace of the
Advanced Placement Program Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada created by the College Board. AP offers undergraduate university-level curricula and examinations to high school students. Colleges and universities in the US and elsewh ...
of the
College Entrance Examination Board The College Board, styled as CollegeBoard, is an American not-for-profit organization that was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an asso ...
. Chalmers served as vice president of the Franco-American Audio-Visual Distribution Center from 1948 to 1953, and president from 1953 to 1956. He was a member of the National Committee for Fulbright Awards in 1951; chairman of school and college study of admissions with advanced standing from 1951 to 1956, president of the College English Association, 1949–50; president of the Ohio College Association, 1943-45.


Published works

* "Jane Addams" in ''Prairie Crops: Addresses given at the commencement exercises and the baccalaureate service, June, 1935'', edited by J. S. P. Tatlock. Rockford College, Rockford, Ill., 1936, 16-24. * "Advanced Credit for the School Student." The College Board Review 18 (November 1952): 309-12. * The College in the Woods. Newcomen Society, 1948. * "Education Re-Examined." National Book Foundation ( 1955: * "Effluvia, the History of a Metaphor." PMLA 52, no. 4 (1937): 1031-50. * "The Elective System and Chicago." Association of American Colleges Bulletin 28, no. 4 (1943): 576-86. * "Is There Quackery in Our Schools? Yes, by Gordon K. Chalmers -- No, by Maurice R. Ahrens." Saturday Review of Literature, 12/09 1953. * "Jane Addams." In Prairie Crops: Addresses Given at the Commencement Exercises and the Baccalaureate Service, June, 1935,' edited by J.S.P. Tatlock, 16-24. Rockford IL: Rockford College, 1936. * "The Lodestone and the Understanding of Matter in Seventeenth Century England." Philosophy of Science 4 (1937): 75-95. * The Love of the World. New Haven: The Berkeley Divinity School, 1944. * A New View of the World. A Discussion of Liberal Education After the War. Denver, Colorado: The Social Science Foundation, University of Denver, 1943. * "The Place of Letters in Liberal Education. Report of the Commission on Liberal Education of the Association of American Colleges." Association of American Colleges Bulletin 33, no. 4 (December 1947): 1-8. * "Poetry and General Education." The CEA Critic 10, no. 6 (September 1948): 1-15. * "The Porcelain Egg, or The Present Interpretation of Education to the Public." In Interpreting Education to the Public. Remarks at the Fourteenth Annual Forum on Education of The Tuition Plan at Hotel Ambassador in New York February 10, 1954., 17-28. New York: The Tuition Plan, 1954. * "The Prerequisite of Christian Education." American Scholar 16, no. 4 (Autumn 1947): 471-76. * "The Purpose of Learning." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science September 1955: 7-16. * "Report of Commission on Liberal Education." Association of American Colleges Bulletin 37, no. 1 (March 1951): 135-40. * The Republic and the Person: A Discussion of Necessities in Modern American Education. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1952. * "The Revolutionary Task Ahead: Time for a Change." In The Public Schools in Chrisis; Some Critical Essays, edited by Mortimer Brewster Smith. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1956. * "Sir Thomas Browne and Hieroglyphs." Virginia Quarterly Autumn 1935. * "Sir Thomas Browne, True Scientist." Osiris 2, no. 3 (1936): 28-79. * "The Social Role of Education." On the report of the President's Commission. The American Scholar March 1949: 41-49. * "Three Terms of the Corpuscularian Philosophy." Modern Philology 33 (1935-1936): 243-60. * "Time for a Change." In Toward Unity in Education Policy, 13-22. American Council on Education, 1953. * "To Believe and Doubt Well." Anglican Theological Review 31, no. 1 (January 1949): 9-14. * "Two Universal Values in a Broad Education." In The Annual Conference on Higher Education in Michigan November 29 and 30, 1950. Addresses and Program., 22-30. University of Michigan Official Publication. Vol. 52, No. 100, June 14, 1951. Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University, 1951. * A University Bound in a Smaller Volume: An Address to School Students Delivered Over the Columbia Broadcasting System. Gambier, Ohio: Kenyon College,
1939 This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Coming into effect in Nazi Ger ...
* Wartime College Training Programs of the Armed Services. With Chapters on Special Phases by Sidney L. Pressey, Gordon K. Chalmers, Raymond J. Connolly, and Edward C. Elliott, for the Commission on Implications of Armed Services Educational Programs. Edited by Henry C. Hergé. Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1948. * " oem" In St. Nicholas Magazine, edited by Mary Mapes Dodge. New York: Scribner & Company, 1912. In addition to his published books, he served as editor of the '' American Oxonian'' from 1946 to 1948.


Sources

* Thomas Boardman Greenslade, ''Kenyon College: Its Third Half Century'' (Gambier, Ohio: Kenyon College, 1975) *
Who's Who A Who's Who (or Who Is Who) is a reference work consisting of biographical entries of notable people in a particular field. The oldest and best-known is the annual publication ''Who's Who (UK), Who's Who'', a reference work on contemporary promin ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chalmers, Gordon Keith Presidents of Kenyon College Presidents of Rockford College American Rhodes Scholars Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford Brown University alumni Harvard University alumni Mount Holyoke College faculty People from Waukesha, Wisconsin 1904 births 1956 deaths 20th-century American academics