Robert Lee Flowers (November 6, 1870 – August 24, 1951) served as president of

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

from 1941 to 1948. Flowers graduated from the

U.S. Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a United States Service academies, federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of ...

and worked for Trinity College as a professor in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

before becoming an administrator. He served the university for over sixty years – holding the positions of

Treasurer A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance. Government The treasury o ...

Vice-President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

, and

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

.Duke's Presidents
''Duke University Archives.'' Accessed on February 14, 2008. Flowers was first employed as instructor for Trinity while the college was still in Randolph County. As an engineer, one of his first responsibilities was to wire the new buildings in Durham for electricity after the move in 1892. Affectionately known by students and alumni as "Professor Bobby Flowers," he was named president of Duke University following the death of President Few in 1941. His experience and stature were welcome because the demands of a world at war and the strains of transition to a peacetime economy dominated every aspect of university life during his presidency. In 1948, he stepped down as president and served as chancellor until 1951.

References

External links

Preliminary Inventory of the Robert Lee Flowers Records
University Archives, Duke University 1870 births 1951 deaths Presidents of Duke University Duke University faculty United States Naval Academy alumni {{US-academic-administrator-stub