RG - 2.0.6 The Papers of the Office of the President of Gettysburg College: William Anthony Granville (1910-1923)

Biography

William Anthony Granville (1864-1943) was unanimously elected the sixth president of Gettysburg College, (then called Pennsylvania College) by the Board of Trustees on June 14, 1910.

  After teaching mathematics at Bethany College in Kansas and serving as their treasurer, he attended Yale University where he earned a bachelor of philosophy in 1893 and a doctor of philosophy in 1897. While still a student there, he embarked on a 15 year teaching career serving on the University's mathematics faculty.

Granville is noted for many positive changes he effected while at Gettysburg College, one of the more noteworthy ones being that the College was one of 22 Pennsylvania institutions to appear on the first list of accredited colleges and universities issued by the Middle States Association under his presidency in 1921.

Although he was generally respected by students and faculty, especially for his skill as an instructor in the classroom, Granville experienced two waves of controversy during his tenure and resigned in 1923.

Scope and Content Notes

The bulk of the Granville papers consist mainly of correspondence arranged chronologically and alphabetically.  Most of the papers generated while he was in office were lost in the flood of 1996. Files in the vertical manuscript collection pertaining to Granville's presidency include inaugural material, his instructor's notebook, and the controversy surrounding faculty hirings in 1922.