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Thomas C. Mendenhall, 1910-1998 Tom Mendenhall liked to ask people why a college president is like a porcupine, and then he would supply the answer: "Because it takes one to love one." But as it turns out, Mendenhall was wrong. Other college presidents were not his only fans. He was loved by many, and his death on July 18 at the age of 88 was mourned by all those whose lives he had touched. Thomas Corwin Mendenhall became the sixth president of Smith College in 1959, at a time of peace and prosperity. The prosperity persisted but the peace didn't: during much of the Mendenhall presidency American higher education and society at large were plagued by upheaval born of the civil rights, antiwar and women's movements. The wisdom, tact and humor with which Mendenhall led the college during that period allowed Smith to emerge with a more precise awareness of student needs and an active, practical sense of social responsibility. An advocate of diversity and free speech, Mendenhall was "a truly engaged intellectual; his feet were planted in his historical discipline, but his heart was planted in the right values," says Richard P. Unsworth, the college's chaplain during much of Mendenhall's tenure. Between his arrival in Northampton from Yale University, where he had been a professor of history and master of Berkeley College, and his departure in 1975 for his retirement on Martha's Vineyard, Mendenhall guided Smith through a series of changes that substantially altered the college's curriculum and social environment. Smith participation in intercollegiate athletic competition greatly increased on his watch. He also presided over the expansion of the Four College consortium (which, with the creation of Hampshire College became Five Colleges, Inc.), the founding of the Twelve College Exchange and the early stages of what is now the Ada Comstock Scholars Program. He reaffirmed the place of the natural sciences at Smith through the construction of the science center and oversaw the reconstruction of the campus facilities for the fine arts and performing arts. Beyond the Smith community, Mendenhall served on the boards of a number of secondary schools and was actively involved with the Council for Basic Education. In 1962 he helped found Catalyst, the national, nonprofit organization that seeks to advance women in business and the professions, and he later chaired its board. Mendenhall was a graduate of both Yale and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He was the son of Dorothy Reed Mendenhall, class of 1895, a well-known pediatrician, and Charles Mendenhall, a physics professor at the University of Wisconsin. Crew and boating were two of his lifetime passions. He captained the Balliol College crew while at Oxford, coached the Berkeley College crew while teaching at Yale, served as an informal coach for college rowers at Smith and wrote three books on the subject, including A Short History of American Rowing. In his retirement Mendenhall was active in the community life of Martha's Vineyard, serving on the boards of the Martha's Vineyard Hospital and several conservation groups and regularly sailing his Menemsha 24 sloop on Vineyard Sound. A memorial service for Mendenhall will be held Saturday, October 31, at 2 p.m. at the Helen Hills Hills Chapel at Smith. |
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