Charles Richard Van Hise | |
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| Born | (1857-05-29)May 29, 1857 |
| Died | November 19, 1918 (1918-11-20) (aged 61) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Geology |
| Institutions | University of Wisconsin |
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Charles Richard Van Hise (May 29, 1857 – November 19, 1918) was an Americangeologist, academic andprogressive. He served as president of theUniversity of Wisconsin (UW) inMadison, Wisconsin, from 1903 to 1918.
Charles Van Hise was born in 1857 inFulton, Wisconsin, the son of William and Mary, who werefarmers. At age 13 he moved with his family to a farm nearEvansville, Wisconsin, where he completed his secondary education at the Evansville Seminary.[1] In 1874, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he received his bachelor's degree inmechanical engineering in 1879. He received anotherB.S. in 1880 and aM.S. in 1882. In 1892 he became the first to earn aPh.D. degree from the school, receiving a doctorate ingeology. He married Alice Bushnell Ring in 1881. They had three children.[2]
Van Hise joined the faculty of the university immediately after graduating, as an instructor inchemistry andmetallurgy (1879–1883). He then proceeded through the academic ranks as an assistant professor of metallurgy (1886–1888), professor ofmineralogy andpetrography (1888–1892), professor of Archaean and applied geology (1890–1892), and professor of geology (after 1892). Within this time period, he also taught at theUniversity of Chicago as a nonresident professor ofstructural geology and metamorphic geology.
Upon joining the college faculty in 1879, Van Hise began collaborating with his former geology professor, Roland Irving, on a study of thePre-Cambrian rock of northern Wisconsin. In 1882, he and Irving began a geological study of theLake Superior region under the auspices of theUnited States Geological Survey, which Van Hise continued on his own after Irving's death in 1888. Four years later, he completed and presented reports to the USGS in seven volumes which served as Van Hise's doctoral dissertation.[1]
Van Hise retired from teaching and research and was elected by the Board of Regents to become the president of theUniversity of Wisconsin on April 21, 1903. He succeededCharles K. Adams, who had died in 1901, andEdward A. Birge, who had served as acting president for the prior two years. Van Hise was helped in his election by the support of GovernorRobert La Follette. In 1904, as president of the university, he declared that "I shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the university reaches every family of the state," later articulated as the "Wisconsin Idea".[3][4] He was instrumental in the formation of theUniversity of Wisconsin-Extension division. During his tenure, UW's medical college was established, the number of faculty doubled and the university's revenue increased fourfold.
Van Hise supportedeugenics laws, and promotedeugenic thought by founding the University of Wisconsin School of Criminology, stating: "We know enough about eugenics so that if that knowledge were applied, the defective classes would disappear within a generation."[5]
Writing inAfter Seven Years, his 1939 account of his role as an advisor to PresidentFranklin Delano Roosevelt, Raymond Moley credited Van Hise with the underlying philosophy of the New Deal'sNational Industrial Recovery Act, stating: "The source of that philosophy, as I've suggested earlier, was Van Hise'sConcentration and Control, and it was endlessly discussed, from every angle, during the 'brain trust' days. In several of his campaign speeches F.D.R. had touched upon the idea of substituting, for the futile attempt to control the abuses of anarchic private economic power, by smashing it to bits, a policy of cooperative business-government planning to combat the instability of economic operations and the insecurity of livelihood. The beliefs that economic bigness was here to stay; that the problem of government was to enable the whole people to enjoy the benefits of mass production and distribution (economy and security); and that it was the duty of government to devise, with business, the means of social and individual adjustment to the facts of the industrial age—these were the heart and soul of the New Deal…. And if ever a man seemed to embrace this philosophy wholeheartedly, that man was Franklin Roosevelt." [p. 184]
Van Hise worked as a consulting geologist for theUnited States Geological Survey from 1909 to 1918 and published several works for them.[6] He was the principal investigator for a team that investigated the possibility of controlling landslides adjacent to the Panama Canal.[7] He served as the president of theGeological Society of America in 1907,[8][9] theNational Association of State Universities, theNational Academy of Sciences, theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science in 1916, and theInternational Geological Congress inStockholm, Sweden.[1] He died from complications of minor surgery to treat a nasal infection inMilwaukee, Wisconsin, on November 19, 1918.[10]
| Academic offices | ||
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| Preceded by | President of theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison 1903-1918 | Succeeded by |
Presidents of theGeological Society of America | |
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| 1889–1900 |
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| 1901–1925 |
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| 1926–1950 |
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| 1951–1975 |
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| 1976–2000 |
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| 2001– |
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