William Arthur Ganfield

The Reverend William Arthur Ganfield
Ganfield c. 1921
6th President of Carroll College
In office December 1, 1921 – July 1, 1939
Preceded by	Herbert Pierpont Houghton
Succeeded by	Gerrit T. Vander Lugt
11th President of Centre College
In office June 1, 1915 – December 1, 1921
Preceded by	Frederick W. Hinitt
Succeeded by	R. Ames Montgomery
Personal details
Born	(1873-09-03)September 3, 1873 Cascade, Iowa
Died	October 18, 1940(1940-10-18) (aged 67) Chicago, Illinois
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Clara Boardman ​ (m. 1901)​
Education	St. Mary's Seminary Cornell College McCormick Theological Seminary University of Chicago

William Arthur Ganfield (September 3, 1873 – October 18, 1940) was an American pastor, educator, and academic administrator who was president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, from 1915 to 1921 and then of Carroll College (now called Carroll University) in Waukesha, Wisconsin, from 1921 until his retirement in 1939.

A preacher in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Ganfield was hired to join the history faculty at Carroll in 1904 and stayed in Waukesha until 1915, when he was elected president of what is now Centre College. There, he reversed decisions made by his predecessor, Frederick W. Hinitt, in order to restore the school's close connection with the church, leading to an increase in enrollment and a successful fundraiser. Centre experienced significant athletic success during Ganfield's tenure, particularly in football; the 1919 team was retroactively recognized as national champions and the 1921 team won a major upset victory over Harvard. By the time of the Harvard game, Ganfield had already agreed to return to Carroll as their president, though his contract stipulated that he would not begin the position until after the game.

Ganfield, who took office at Carroll directly after the school's first lay president, kept its ties to the church intact and maintained daily chapel attendance as a requirement of all students. Enrollment and the endowment both grew during his nineteen-year term, the latter to $800,000 by his retirement. Athletics enjoyed increase attention and success; Norris Armstrong, a former member of Centre's football team, came to Carroll in 1923 to coach the football and basketball teams, both of which won numerous league titles. As faculty numbers grew, fixed salaries were implemented and pensions were introduced during the Great Depression. Ganfield retired in 1939 due to poor health and died the following year.

Early life and education

William Arthur Ganfield was born on September 3, 1873, in Cascade, Iowa. He graduated from St. Mary's Seminary in Epworth, Iowa, in 1894. He attended Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1898 and a Master of Arts in 1901. Afterwards, he attended McCormick Theological Seminary and completed graduate work at the University of Chicago.

Career

Green Bay and Waukesha, 1900–1915

Ganfield was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Cedar Rapids in 1900 and ordained by the Presbytery of Winnebago in 1901. He began his ministerial career as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on May 5, 1901. He spent four years in Green Bay before resigning on July 31, 1904, to become a professor of history and political science at Carroll College—now Carroll University—in Waukesha, Wisconsin. This move came at a time when Carroll was transitioning from a two-year junior college to a four-year college. Ganfield departed Green Bay for Waukesha on August 31, 1904.

In late 1911, Ganfield became interim pastor of the Congregational Church in Menomonie, Wisconsin, following the resignation of that church's pastor. The church offered him the pastorate in full in February 1912; he declined, but agreed to remain on in an interim capacity until at least June of that year. He ultimately remained as pastor until 1914. During part of his time in Waukesha, Ganfield was fire and police commissioner, a position he resigned upon leaving for Central.

Presidency in Danville, 1915–1921

Centre football players on the sideline during their upset win over Harvard in 1921

Ganfield was unanimously elected president of Central University of Kentucky in Danville, Kentucky, on May 5, 1915. He accepted the position at the following month's board meeting, and his presidency was made effective June 1, 1915. He inherited a college with declining enrollment, partially as a result of decisions made by his predecessor, Frederick W. Hinitt, to sever formal ties with the Presbyterian Church for the first time. Those changes were made in order to gain Central admittance into the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which required member schools be "non-sectarian", in 1908. Many of Ganfield's major decisions worked to reverse this in an effort to get the school's enrollment and endowment back up, though he did conduct a fundraiser which was planned for completion in 1919, in time for the college's centennial, prior to such a reversal. The fundraiser was successful, though not until after the centennial; by 1922, the total amount raised had reached $400,000 (equivalent to $7,280,000 in 2023) and had raised the school's endowment past $1 million for the first time.

Gradually, the school's ties to the church were reinstated; it received funding for teaching of the Bible from the board of education of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA; the "Northern Presbyterian Church") in 1919 before fully reinstating the church connection in 1921. This change was not without opposition, especially from some of the younger members of the school's board of trustees, but the change went further in specifying that future presidents of the school would be required to be Presbyterian. Almost immediately, enrollment rebounded; from a low of 80 students in 1915, the school hit 287 in 1921, the first year after church ties were reinstated. Another major change took place when the school reverted to the "Centre College" name on December 17, 1918. It had used the name "Central University of Kentucky" since its merger with Central University, of Richmond, Kentucky, in 1901.

Athletics, particularly football, were emphasized during Ganfield's time at Centre. The "Praying Colonels" football team was experiencing national prominence. Ganfield recruited Charley Moran to take over as head coach starting in 1917, and the hiring of Texas high school football coach Robert L. Myers as athletic director meant that his star players Bo McMillin, Red Weaver, and Red Roberts joined him in Danville as members of the football team. The team saw success almost immediately; the 1917 squad lost only one game, the 1918 team went undefeated in a flu-shortened season, and the 1919 team finished undefeated—allowing no more than seven points in any game—and were retroactively recognized as national champions by the Sagarin ratings. The team's success and fame peaked as a result of their October 29, 1921, victory over Harvard, generally viewed as one of the largest upsets in college football history. This athletic success came at the price of declining academic standards; Centre was dropped from the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of Southern States in 1920 and was not restored until 1923.

Return to Carroll, 1921–1939

Ganfield took the presidency of Carroll College effective December 1, 1921. He had been Carroll's first choice to replace Wilbur Oscar Carrier when he resigned the presidency in 1917, but Ganfield declined because he was less than two years into his term at Central. Despite this, he was not Carroll's first choice this time; he was offered the job after George McCune, a pastor from New York, declined it. Ganfield's return to Carroll restored a minister to their presidency, as his predecessor, Herbert Pierpont Houghton, had been the school's first lay president. Ganfield had accepted the presidency earlier that year but his new contract dictated that he would not leave Centre until after the Harvard game. At Carroll, Ganfield worked to restore Carroll's Christian identity and re-integrated religion as a key part of the student experience. Throughout his term, daily chapel attendance was upheld as a requirement for all students and church attendance remained a requirement for faculty members.

Shortly after returning to Carroll, Ganfield entered the Republican primary for Wisconsin's Class 1 U.S. Senate seat being contested in the 1922 elections. He was defeated by incumbent senator Robert M. La Follette after earning just 27.8% of the vote to La Follette's 72.2%; La Follette went on to win the general election in a landslide over the Democratic candidate Jessie Jack Hooper. That same year, Ganfield was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of Wisconsin. He remained involved in politics and was part of Wendell Willkie's platform committee during his run for president of the United States in 1940.

As part of an effort to raise funds and increase Carroll's endowment, Ganfield sought to increase emphasis on athletics in a similar fashion as had been done at Centre. A new gymnasium was constructed at Carroll starting in 1923, though a collapse of the steel framework in November of that year delayed its completion. It was dedicated on June 12, 1924. His interest in sports included a prediction that the school's football team would be beating the team from the University of Wisconsin–Madison within a few years, though this game ultimately never happened. In 1923, Norris Armstrong, a member of the 1921 Centre team, was hired to be Carroll's head coach, and the team went on to win three consecutive conference championships from 1925 to 1927. Armstrong also coached the Carroll basketball team to league titles in 1924, 1925, and 1927.

Pensions, a fixed salary scale, and tenure for faculty members were major issues during Ganfield's administration, especially against the backdrop of growing faculty numbers. The salary scale was established in 1928, with the maximum salary for a full professor set at $3,200 (equivalent to $57,000 in 2023) per year. Solutions to the pension and tenure problems were only addressed after the Great Depression, the former only as a result of government regulation. Greek life enjoyed prominence at Carroll during Ganfield's tenure; the school hosted four fraternities (Phi Theta Pi, Beta Pi Epsilon, Tau Kappa Epsilon, and Gamma Phi Delta) and four sororities (Beta Chi Theta, Kappa Gamma Phi, Theta Pi Delta, and Alpha Kappa).

By 1927, the school's endowment reached upwards of $650,000 (equivalent to $11.4 million in 2023), and enrollment had grown to 430 students two years later. Around that time, the school added several buildings to its campus, including an infirmary, a music building, and a library, in addition to a new wing of the womens' dormitory. During the Great Depression, Ganfield wore a red tie during years where the school was in debt ("in the red") and a black tie when the school ran a budget surplus ("in the black"). Despite the economic hardship nationwide, Carroll experienced relative prosperity during this time; with tuition costs at $200 (equivalent to $4,000 in 2023) per student, the college finished with surpluses on multiple occasions, received a record number of applications, and maintained steady enrollment. By the time of Ganfield's resignation, the endowment had reached $800,000 (equivalent to $17.5 million in 2023).

Carroll's enrollment had reached 500 students by 1935, and that academic year also saw faculty salaries receive a slight increase. By the end of his term, the school had 33 faculty members and a requirement that they must earn a master's degree. Despite these standards, Carroll was passed over by the Phi Beta Kappa honor society in 1935.

Ganfield retired effective July 1, 1939, due to poor health. Gerrit T. Vander Lugt, a member of the Carroll faculty, was chosen to replace Ganfield as acting president and was later elevated to the full position, becoming Ganfield's successor in June 1940.

Personal life and death

Ganfield married Clara Boardman on August 27, 1901, and the couple had five children. He died on October 18, 1940, at Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago.

During his career, Ganfield was a member of the board of trustees of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, the YMCA of Kentucky executive committee, the Kentucky Sunday School Association state board, and the International Sunday School Association. Ganfield's name is given to one part of Cooper Ganfield Hall, a dormitory building at Centre, and Ganfield Gymnasium, a recreation center at Carroll. Carroll's first-year William A. Ganfield Fellow Scholarship is also named for him.

Ganfield was a member of the Knights Templar and was elected grand commander of the Wisconsin chapter in 1931.

References

Bibliography

• Centre College Board of Trustees Minutes (1901–1916). Vol. 5. Danville, Kentucky: Centre College. 1918.
• Centre College Board of Trustees Minutes (1918) (PDF). Vol. 6. Danville, Kentucky: Centre College. 1918. p. 5.
• Doyle, Andrew (2017). "Defeated by the Accreditors: The Rise and Fall of Big-Time Football at Centre College, 1915–1926". Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 115 (4): 471–524. doi:10.1353/khs.2017.0077. JSTOR 44981258. OCLC 8151318908. S2CID 159973554.
• Hubbard, Joseph Welton (1907). The Presbyterian Church in Iowa, 1837–1900 (PDF). Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Jones & Wells.
• Langill, Ellen (1980). Carroll College: The First Century, 1846–1946. Waukesha, Wisconsin: Carroll College. ISBN 0-916120-06-6. OCLC 6051347.
• Robertson, Robert W. (2008). The Wonder Team: The Story of the Centre College Praying Colonels and their Rise to the Top of the Football World, 1917–1924. Louisville, Kentucky: Butler Books. ISBN 978-1-8845-3299-3. OCLC 298116073.
• Weston, William J. (2019). Centre College: a Bicentennial History. Danville, Kentucky: Centre College. ISBN 978-1-6943-5863-9. OCLC 1142930784.
• Wisconsin Blue Book - Election Statistics (PDF). 1922. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 17, 2015.