John Wieland Oswald (October 11, 1917 – February 1, 1995) was president of the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...

, executive vice president of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

, and President of the Pennsylvania State University.

Biography

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1917, Oswald did his undergraduate work in

botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

DePauw University DePauw University is a private liberal arts university in Greencastle, Indiana. It has an enrollment of 1,972 students. The school has a Methodist heritage and was originally known as Indiana Asbury University. DePauw is a member of both the ...

Greencastle, Indiana Greencastle is a city in Greencastle Township, Putnam County, Indiana, United States, and the county seat of Putnam County. It was founded in 1821 by Ephraim Dukes on a land grant. He named the settlement for his hometown of Greencastle, Pennsylv ...

and received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from the University of California in 1942. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Oswald served as a

PT boat A PT boat (short for patrol torpedo boat) was a motor torpedo boat used by the United States Navy in World War II. It was small, fast, and inexpensive to build, valued for its maneuverability and speed but hampered at the beginning of the war ...

captain in the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...

. In 1946, Oswald taught plant pathology as an assistant professor at the Davis Campus of the University of California. He was chairman plant pathology department at the Berkeley Campus in 1954. In 1962 he became vice president for administration in the statewide system for the University of California. Oswald was president of the

from 1963 to 1968. He was executive vice president of the University of California from 1968 to 1970. In 1970, he became president of Pennsylvania State University until he retired in 1983. He died in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 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 ...

in 1995.

Notes

References

Penn State Presidents and their achievements

Biography at University of Kentucky
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oswald, John W. University of California, Berkeley alumni DePauw University alumni Presidents of Pennsylvania State University 1917 births 1995 deaths Presidents of the University of Kentucky 20th-century American academics