Hugh Calkins (February 20, 1924 – August 4, 2014) was an American lawyer and educator, who served as a member of the

Harvard Corporation The President and Fellows of Harvard College, also called the Harvard Corporation or just the Corporation, is the smaller and more powerful of Harvard University's two governing boards. It refers to itself as the oldest corporation in the Western ...

from 1968 to 1985.

Early life

Calkins was born in

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located roughly west of Downtown Boston, and comprises a patchwork of thirteen villages. The city borders Boston to the northeast and southeast (via the neighborhoods of ...

in 1924, and went to

Phillips Exeter Academy Phillips Exeter Academy (often called Exeter or PEA) is an Independent school, independent, co-educational, college-preparatory school in Exeter, New Hampshire. Established in 1781, it is America's sixth-oldest boarding school and educates an es ...

before attending

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

. As an undergraduate, he served briefly as president of the ''

Harvard Crimson The Harvard Crimson is the nickname of the college sports teams of Harvard College. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2013, there were 42 Division I intercollegiate Varsity team, varsity sports teams for women and men at Harva ...

'' in 1942. He graduated ''

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

'' in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

. He joined the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

and was on the staff at the Guam Air Depot, which provided aircraft maintenance. He served until 1946 and became a captain.

Career

After the war, Calkins returned to Harvard to attend

law school A law school (also known as a law centre/center, college of law, or faculty of law) is an institution, professional school, or department of a college or university specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for b ...

, was president of the ''Law Review'', and graduated with enough honors in 1949 to win a job as a

law clerk A law clerk, judicial clerk, or judicial assistant is a person, often a lawyer, who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by Legal research, researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial ...

Learned Hand Billings Learned Hand ( ; January 27, 1872 – August 18, 1961) was an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher. He served as a federal trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924 a ...

, then the chief judge of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory covers the states of Connecticut, New York (state), New York, and Vermont, and it has ap ...

. He spent the following year clerking for Justice

Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, advocating judicial restraint. Born in Vienna, Frankfurter im ...

on the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

Lawyer

In 1951, Calkins moved to Cleveland, where he made a name for himself and worked for the law firm

Jones Day Jones Day is an American multinational law firm based in Washington, D.C. As of 2023, it is one of the largest law firms in the United States, with 2,302 attorneys, and among the highest-grossing in the world with revenues of $2.5 billion. Foun ...

. Calkins was active in regard to national legal issues, most notably serving as deputy director of President Eisenhower's Commission on National Goals. He was elected to the

in 1968, on the basis of work he had done setting long-term goals for the government. His efforts landed him on the

master list of Nixon political opponents The master list of Nixon's political opponents was a secret list compiled by US President Richard Nixon's Presidential Counselor Charles Colson. It was an expansion of the original Nixon's Enemies List of 20 key people considered opponents of ...

. Calkins stepped down from the Harvard Corporation in 1985, and was succeeded by

Henry Rosovsky Henry Rosovsky (September 1, 1927 – November 11, 2022)Marquis Who's Who Biographies, retrieved via LexisNexis Academic was an American economist and academic administrator who served as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard Univer ...

Educator

After retiring from his legal career, Calkins began a second career in public education. He earned a teaching certificate at

John Carroll University John Carroll University (JCU) is a Private university, private Jesuit university in University Heights, Ohio, United States. Located in a suburb of Cleveland, it is primarily an undergraduate, liberal arts college, liberal arts institution compo ...

, spent several years teaching in inner-city

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

schools, founded a charter school and ran an organization called Initiatives in Urban Education. He also founded Plan for Action by Citizens for Education (PACE) and served on the Cleveland Board of Education from 1965 to 1969.

Death

Calkins died on August 4, 2014, at the age of 90."Hugh Calkins"
''

Cleveland Plain Dealer ''The Plain Dealer'' is the major newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio; it is a major national newspaper. In the fall of 2019, it ranked 23rd in U.S. newspaper circulation, a significant drop since March 2013, when its circulation ranked 17th daily an ...

'', August 8, 2014.

References