Word: baxters
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Nice Boys." Baxter prepped for the Williams presidency at Harvard, where his Ph.D. thesis disproved the idea that the Monitor and the Merrimac were the world's first ironclad ships (the first: France's Gloire in 1859). When he became Master of the newly opened Adams House, Baxter learned the art of running a college. The chance came in 1937 when Williams President Tyler Dennett quit after only three years (he thought the trustees were wasting money). It was Dennett who summed up one of Baxter's main problems: "Nice boys-I mean the well-mannered, sophisticated...
Williams still has nice boys, but they work harder. When Baxter arrived, the average grade was Dplus. It is now between C-plus and B-minus on a tougher scale. Combatting the old image, Williams has boosted scholarships and student aid more than sixfold. About 30% of Williams men receive such aid, and 50% of them are products of public education rather than prep schools...
...Baxter had another problem in the fondness of little (now 1,200 men) Williams for small classes and intimate seminars. That tradition made the college the subject of one of U.S. education's most endlessly quoted remarks. Speaking about Williams President Mark Hopkins, U.S. President James A. Garfield, Williams '56 (who was assassinated on his way to a Williams commencement), supposedly said that "the ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other.'' In a day of academic mass production, the notion was bound to cost Williams plenty...
...years as president, Baxter found most of the needed money. The book value of Williams' endowment more than doubled to $27.7 million (market value: $40 million). Equally important, Williams began linking fields to enrich teaching. Among the blends: art-and-literature, art-and-religion. U.S. history-and-literature. Baxter also sharply built up Williams' backward science departments. Even so, the college now has a slightly lower (1:10) teacher-student ratio than when he took over...
...Better." Baxter meanwhile found time to serve as deputy director of the OSS in World War II. publish a Pulitzer prizewinning history (Scientists Against Time) in 1946, write much of the secret Gaither Committee report on U.S. defenses in 1957. He vice-chaired the American Council on Education, headed the Association of American Colleges and the boards of visitors of both Annapolis and West Point. Still able and willing, Baxter this year will be Senior Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan, next year teach at Dartmouth, and eventually settle near Harvard, where he plans to write...