JEfje JEototr ot Campus TOiousftt anb Sttion Cfje ©ufe^Cljrontcle Volume 58, Number 15 Duke University, Durham N. C. Friday, November 2, 1962 Trustees Name President: Douglas Maitland Knight The Board o£ Trustees elected a new President 1951. He is completing work on one section of a of the University this morning. He is Dr. Douglas definitive edition of Pope's Iliad and Odyssey. Maitland Knight, 41-year-old president of Law­ Dr. Knight is married and the father of four rence College in Appleton, Wisconsin. sons, aged five to 16. Dr. Knight will succeed Dr. J. Deryl Hart, who The selection of Dr. Knight ends a search that is nearing the mandatory retirement age. He will actually began before Dr. Hart became President. assume office sometime during the 1963-64 aca­ Dr. Hart was appointed as an interim president demic year, remaining at Lawrence for an indeter­ after the resignation of Dr. A. Hollis Edens in minate time in order to fulfill his responsibilities. February, 1960. DR. KNIGHT BECAME president of Law­ BUNYAN S. WOMBLE, chairman of the rence College nine years ago. He was previously a Trustees, said "I am confident that Dr. Knight member of the English department faculty at Yale will provide Duke University with the type of ag­ University. gressive, wise and dedicated leadership which these Dr. Knight has received three degrees from challenging times demand." Thomas L. Perkins, Yale. He earned his A.B. in 1942, the M.A. in 1944, chairman of The Duke Endowment, said Dr. and the Ph.D. in 1946. His first book, Alexander Knight is the type of man that James B. Duke en­ Pope and the Heroic Tradition, was published in visioned to operate the University. THE DUKE CHRONICLE Friday, November 2, 1962 'SPECIAL SORT OF EBULLIENCE' Knight's Career Glimpses of the President The following excerpts are taken from the alumni maga­ parts of the place. One of the taken from the November 1953 zine of the college. things that's exciting about such edition of the Yale alumni mag­ Proves Varied azine on Douglas M. Knight. a job is that it's in your power to see it all—not to do it all, Douglas Maitland Knight was born in Cambridge, president-elect of the University I intend to keep my mouth Massachusetts, on June 8, 1921. He was only five years shut and learn about the job but to see it all. old when his father, a postal executive, died. His mother first. But I think there is one was a teacher, serving in the public schools of Connecti­ "Then there's a special sort of ebullience in a University," I'm well aware that I come thing we all agree on. And cut, Florida, North Carolina and the District of Columbia. out of a different background, that is that the value of a She also worked for the federal government. added Knight. "Even while working their hardest most of and it would be foolish to sit place like Lawrence lies in Dr. Knight attended primary, grammar and high here and tell you that I have the faculty seem to be enjoying what it does with and for the school in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Florida and the Dis­ themselves, probably because my plans all formulated in trict of Columbia. In 1935 he went to Phillips Exeter they are doing the thing they specific terms. individual. Even the best Uni­ Academy where he worked as a student waiter to pay most want to do. This is one versity in the world can't pay place where people are not just I intend to picture the job not attention to what one man his way. Soon after enrollment, though, his scholastic as that of a bird who's removed accomplishments began to win for him sufficient prizes working in order to make and woman needs. Of course, enough money so that they can somewhere off here, not as a and awards to pay his way through the Academy. He get away from work. fellow who hands down things a Thoreauvian kind of chaos was graduated with honors in 1937. from above, but as one who's can result if the individual is Because he was so young—only 16 years old—he de­ "Also, there's an element working with all the component the sole concern. layed enrolling in Yale University for a year, and took of personal freedom and in­ postgraduate work at Phillips Exeter. dividuality that is particularly characteristic of a university * * * campus. Within the bounds of DR. KNIGHT ENROLLED at Yale in the fall of 1938, ordinary courtesy and com­ received the A.B. degree in 1942, the M.A. degree in 1944, mon sense you dress as you and the Ph.D. degree in 1946. Throughout his academic like, speak as you like and career as a student, his scholastic achievements were out­ act as you like. Here you are standing. As a senior at Yale, he was elected to Phi Beta valued for what you are, not Kappa. for what you appear to be." After Dr. Knight received his Ph.D. from Yale, he was A recent course critique put appointed an instructor in English there, and one year out by a group of undergradu­ later was promoted to assistant professor. He served in ates suggests that Knight's en­ that capacity until the end of the 1953-54 academic year, thusiasm is highly contagious. when at the age of 32, he left Yale to become the 11th— "He has an unusual ability to and youngest—president of Lawrence College. lead class discussion without dominating it," they wrote. "He * * * has a grasp and enthusiasm for DR. KNIGHT IS PRIMARILY a teacher and has con­ the material and is able to con­ tinued his work in the classroom, despite the heavy de­ vey these to the students." mands on his time as president. His particular compe­ In Knight's case this schol­ tence is in Eighteenth-Century Literature. His first book, arly activity includes one Alexander Pope and the Heroic Tradition, was published published book (Pope and the in 1951 by the Yale University Press. He also is the author Heroic Tradition), fifteen or of more than a score of scholarly articles. He is currently twenty shorter works and completing work on one section of a definitive edition several other projects on of Pope's Iliad and Odyssey, which will be published soon. which he is now working. Although a layman, Dr. Knight is active in the Congre- Since . painting and car­ gationalist Church and has done considerable religious pentry have become a compul­ writing. He is the author of "Religious Implications in sion and Knight himself con­ the Humanities," a pamphlet written for the Hazen Foun­ fesses that he would cheerfully dation. Here he outlines one of his basic convictions about tear down the recently com­ teaching—that intellectual and religious life have a com­ pleted back porch merely to re­ build it again. Mrs. Knight, for­ mon ground and a common concern. tunately, shares this strange * * * passion, and together she and DK. KNIGHT IS MARRIED to the former Miss Grace her husband converted an aban­ doned barn on his mother's farm Nichols, daughter of the late Robert Hastings Nichols, near Old Lyme into a summer one-time professor of American church history at Auburn home. Seminary and at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. Mrs. Knight, after attending high school, enrolled Music is another hobby the at Abbot Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and then Knights share, and after the went to Smith College where she earned the B.A. degree. supper dishes are done and She also attended the Yale University School of Nursing, the (four) boys have been receiving her master's degree in 1943. Mrs. Knight read to and put to bed, they worked as a public health nurse for three years in New count on at least half an hour Haven, in order to put her husband through graduate of recorded music. The rest THE CELLAR • of the evening is customarily school. devoted to reading . The Knights have four sons—Christopher, 16; Douglas Jr., 14; Thomas, 11; an*d Stephen* , *5. * * * The following statements wmSvuixiJllm&. THE NEW PRESIDENT is a member of the National were made by Dr. Knight when Council on Religion in Higher Education, a member of he assumed the presidency of the editorial board of Christian Scholar magazine, and a a member of the board of directors of the Rockefeller Lawrence College. These were Brothers Theological Program. He is currently a member of the Commission on Lib­ eral Education of the Association of American Colleges; a trustee of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foun­ dation, the Edward W. Hazen Foundation, and the Insti­ tute of Paper Chemistry. He is a past trustee of the Col­ lege Entrance Examination Board. Dr. Knight has had two major foreign assignments in recent years. He traveled to Europe in 1960 to gather ma­ EARLY terial for a book, The Federal Government and Higher ,\j%jj>j\jj*j] A Education, which he edited and for which he wrote sev­ eral chapters. He went to Karachi, Pakistan in 1961 as SHCDP IN one of three United States delegates to a SEATO confer­ LEISURE ence of Asian university presidents. SH<DP rBeefeaters' Haven " Select Popular penny loafer Hallmark Christmas cards lo be impiimed with with a quality personality your name now before the rush B . just for TUESDAY and THURSDAY begins. You promised yourself crafted by Bostonian you'd shop ewly this year, Rart It's the same campus-favored penny-style—but Prime w with a difference.