Charles Keyser Edmunds (1876–8 January 1949) was an American engineer and physicist who served as president of

Lingnan University Lingnan University (LN/LU), formerly called Lingnan College, is a public liberal arts university in Hong Kong. It aims to provide students with an education in the liberal arts tradition and has joined the Global Liberal Arts Alliance since ...

Canton, China Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kong ...

, and Pomona College in

Claremont, California Claremont () is a suburban city on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County, California, United States, east of downtown Los Angeles. It is in the Pomona Valley, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. As of the 2010 census it had a popul ...

Life and career

Edmunds was born in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

and attended

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

, graduating in 1897. He taught physics at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

during the 1898–1899 academic year, and subsequently moved to China to teach physics and engineering at

. He became president of Lingnan in 1907, serving until 1924. He moved back to the United States in 1928, to serve as president of Pomona College, becoming the college's first non-clergy president. During his tenure, he focused on Pomona's residential life, overseeing the construction of several dormitories and dining facilities, including Frary Dining Hall and the Clark dormitories. He also inspired a growing interest in Asian culture at the college. He retired in 1941, and later that year received the

Order of the Jade Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of ...

from China. He died after being struck by a car while crossing

Route 66 U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The h ...

in Claremont in January 1949. Pomona's original student center was named the Edmunds Union in his honor; it was built in 1937 and demolished in 1997. More recently, an academic building opened in 2007 was named Edmunds Hall in his honor.

References

Edmunds 1876 births Johns Hopkins University alumni 1949 deaths {{academic-bio-stub