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AROUND THE QUADS

IN MEMORIAM: David B. Truman

David B. Truman (1913–2003)

David B. Truman, a popular College dean and controversial University provost in the 1960s, died on August 28 in Sarasota, Fla. He was 90.

Truman was born on June 1, 1913, in Evanston, Ill. He graduated from Amherst College in 1935 and received an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1936 and 1939, respectively. After government service in Washington, D.C., during World War II, Truman became a lieutenant (j.g.) in the Naval Reserve and completed his military service as a staff member of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey in the Pacific.

Truman taught at Cornell, Bennington, Harvard and Williams before coming to Columbia in 1950. He became a full professor in 1951, at 38. Truman was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1955–56 and a visiting professor at Yale the following academic year. From 1959–61, he headed the public law and government department at Columbia. During this time, he made a major impact with his numerous publications on American politics, including The Governmental Process: Political Interest and Public Opinion (Knopf, 1965, 1971). Praised by The New York Times as a “careful, responsible and sensible” writer, Truman was considered a distinguished political scientist and was noted for his award-winning research.

In 1962, Truman was named Dean of the College. He was popular and outspoken, promoting new liberal policies at the school as well as in the country. As dean, he often roamed dormitory halls, dropping in to chat with students in their rooms. After being appointed vice president and provost in 1967, Truman changed such outdated rules as the open-door policy in dormitories, allowing students to close their doors while hosting female guests, and instituted a two-day break of Reading/Study Days between the end of a semester’s classes and final exams. He also promoted the University’s decision to allow students to choose whether to release their grades to the draft board. Truman spoke out for civil rights and against McCarthyism, and challenged Jacques Barzun ’27’s famous assertion that the liberal arts were “dead or dying.”

Truman was widely considered the leading candidate to become University president after Grayson Kirk’s anticipated retirement, but that changed with the demonstrations that rocked the University in Spring 1968. Students seized several campus buildings on April 23 and a week of negotiations ended in deadlock, with the administration unable to meet student demands “without betraying not only Columbia but the whole of higher education,” according to Truman. Police were called in to clear the buildings, resulting in numerous injuries. Kirk and Truman resigned in January 1969.

Truman became president of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, and during his nine-year term, he again led the administration through important and pioneering debates, such as whether the school should go co-ed. After his retirement in 1978, Truman served as president of the Russell Sage Foundation, which sponsors research in social sciences, for a year.

A memorial service honoring Truman was held at St. Paul’s Chapel on October 23.

Truman is survived by his wife, Elinor Griffinhagen; son, Edwin; two grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.

L.P., M.V.

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