William G. Caples
From KCpedia
Fifteenth President of Kenyon College: 1968 - 1975
Contents |
Early Life
William Goff Caples was born on October 4, 1909 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Kenyon Undergraduate Years
He transferred into the Kenyon Class of 1930 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
Later Career
He then attended Northwestern University, where he received a law degree in 1933. After graduate school, Caples worked as a lawyer for the Chicago firm of Chapman and Culter and the Continental Casualty Company, before becoming vice-president of the National Casualty Company. With the outbreak of World War II, Caples left his position to lead the Army Corps of Engineers' 1881th Engineering Battalion, where he oversaw construction of runways throughout the South Pacific. He was discharged in 1946 as a lieutenant colonel.
After World War II, Caples returned to Chicago and became president of Island Steel, managing industrial relations and acting as assistant to the president. He become vice-president for industrial and public relations in 1953, while also becoming involved with the Chicago community through his work on the Chicago Board of Education during the segregation conflicts.
Kenyon Presidency
Caples joined the Kenyon Board of Trustees in 1952, and when President Franze Edward Lund announced his retirement in April 1968, the Executive Committee asked Caples to consider the position. Although Caples was concerned that the faculty would not support a non-academic president, a poll of the faculty unanimously supported his election, and his name was presented to the Board of Trustees less than a month later.
The most substantial and long-lasting change that occurred during Caples' time as president was the establishment of the Coordinate College for Women, which made Kenyon co-educational for the first time in its history. This change involved the construction of several new campus buildings, including the residences Mather Hall, McBride Hall, and Caples Hall, as well as Gund Commons. Although initially designed as a separate, coordinate institution, the Coordinate College was eventually integrated fully into the Kenyon College administration. Also during Caples' administration, the remaining Bexley Seminary institution was removed to Rochester, New York, concluding Kenyon's long relationship with Episcopalian education.
Aside from the administrative and structural changes made to Kenyon during the 1960s and 70s, Caples was able to ameliorate the long-standing financial deficits that plagued the College, instituting the current tradition of annually balanced budgets.
After Kenyon
Caples announced his retirement from the position of Kenyon President in 1974, and afterwards returned to Chicago to work at the law firm Vedder, Price, Kaufman and Kammholz. Caples died of a stroke in Seattle, Washington on December 4, 1989 at the age of 80.
Resources in the Kenyon College Archives
- William Goff Caples -- collected materials
- Barth, Christopher. The Kenyon Presidency: Profiles of Leadership 1824-2002. Gambier, Ohio: Greenslade Special Collections and Archives, 2002.
