James Alfred Perkins (October 11, 1911 – August 19, 1998
) was the seventh
president
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*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
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of
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
, from 1963 to 1969.
Biography
Perkins was born in 1911 in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, graduated with honors in 1934 from
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...
, and received a
doctorate
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...
in
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
from
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in 1937.
Delta Upsilon
Delta Upsilon (), commonly known as DU, is a collegiate men's fraternity founded on November 4, 1834 at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is the sixth-oldest, all-male, college Greek Letter Organizations#Greek letters, Greek-let ...
Fraternity
A fraternity (from Latin language, Latin ''wiktionary:frater, frater'': "brother (Christian), brother"; whence, "wiktionary:brotherhood, brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club (organization), club or fraternal ...
and played varsity football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
alongside his classmate, DU brother and future 1972 Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
laureate Christian B. Anfinsen
Christian Boehmer Anfinsen Jr. (March 26, 1916 – May 14, 1995) was an American biochemist. He shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Stanford Moore and William Howard Stein for work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the c ...
. From 1937 to 1941 he was a faculty member at Princeton. After service in the Office of Price Administration and the Foreign Economic Administration during World War II, he was vice president of Swarthmore from 1945 to 1950.[
In 1950 he joined the ]Carnegie Corporation
The Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world. Carnegie Corporation has endowed or otherwise helped to establis ...
, an educational foundation. In 1951–1952, on leave from there, he served as deputy chairman of the Research and Development Board of the Department of Defense. In addition while at Carnegie he chaired President Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
's Advisory Panel on a National Academy of Foreign Affairs, sat on the General Advisory Committee of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
The U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) was an independent agency of the United States government that existed from 1961 to 1999. Its mission was to strengthen United States national security by "formulating, advocating, negotiating, ...
, the U.S. Committee for UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
, and the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...
, and headed the Rockefeller Brothers Fund
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) is a philanthropic foundation created and run by members of the Rockefeller family. It was founded in New York City in 1940 as the primary philanthropic vehicle for the five third-generation Rockefeller brothe ...
committee that produced the report ''The Power of the Democratic Idea''.[
Perkins served as president of Cornell from October 4, 1963, until his resignation on May 31, 1969, in the wake of the occupation of Willard Straight Hall by armed African American students. In 1995 Thomas W. Jones, a trustee of the university who had been a leader of the building occupation, established the James A. Perkins Prize for Interracial Understanding and Harmony in his name.][
He was a member of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education from 1967 to 1973,][ and after leaving Cornell, founded the International Council for Educational Development in ]Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...
. In 1978 he was appointed chairman of President Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 19 ...
's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies.[ He was a member of the Steering Committee of the ]Bilderberg Group
The Bilderberg meeting (also known as the Bilderberg Group) is an annual off-the-record conference established in 1954 to foster dialogue between Europe and North America. The group's agenda, originally to prevent another world war, is now defin ...
.
Perkins' publications include ''The University in Transition'' (1966),[ a series of three lectures in which he argued that a university must balance its three missions of research, teaching, and public service. He died in ]Burlington, Vermont
Burlington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Chittenden County. It is located south of the Canada–United States border and south of Montreal. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 44,743. It ...
, of complications after a fall while in the Adirondacks
The Adirondack Mountains (; a-də-RÄN-dak) form a massif in northeastern New York with boundaries that correspond roughly to those of Adirondack Park. They cover about 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2). The mountains form a roughly circular d ...
.[
]
In popular culture
In an episodeThe Office
''The Office'' is a mockumentary sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, first made in the United Kingdom, then Germany, and subsequently the United States. It has since been remade in ten other countries.
The original series of ...
, Andy Bernard
Andrew Baines Bernard is a fictional character from the NBC comedy television series ''The Office'', portrayed by Ed Helms. He is introduced in Season 3 as the Regional Director in Charge of Sales at the Stamford branch of paper distribution co ...
mentions Perkins during a Cornell admissions interview of coworker Dwight.
Notes
Further reading
*
External links
Cornell Presidency: James A. Perkins
* Cornell University Library
The Cornell University Library is the library system of Cornell University. As of 2014, it holds over 8 million printed volumes and over a million ebooks. More than 90 percent of its current 120,000 Periodical literature, periodical titles are ...
Presidents Exhibition: James Alfred Perkins
PresidencyInauguration
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perkins, James A.
1911 births
1998 deaths
Members of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group
Presidents of Cornell University
Princeton University alumni
Princeton University faculty
Swarthmore College alumni
Swarthmore Garnet Tide football players
American political scientists
American Quakers
Educators from Philadelphia
20th-century Quakers
20th-century American academics
20th-century political scientists