Charles William Dabney

Charles William Dabney (June 19, 1855 – June 15, 1945) was President of the University of Tennessee and the University of Cincinnati.

Biography

Charles William Dabney was born in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia to Robert Lewis and Lavinia Morrison Dabney. He completed his undergraduate education at Hampden-Sydney College and continued on to the University of Virginia, graduating with his Master's degree in chemistry in 1877. He taught for a year at Emory and Henry College. He later enrolled in the University of Goettingen, Germany in 1878 to continue his education. He graduated with his Ph.D in 1880 and returned to the United States. Dabney settled in North Carolina, married Mary Chilton Brent, and began working as the director of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station.

Dabney became president of the University of Tennessee in 1887. He embarked on a campaign of radical reform. He made agricultural and mechanical courses mandatory, added six new four-year courses in science, updated the physics curriculum, admitted the University's first female students, began the Summer School of the South, ended the military regimen, doubled the size of the faculty, and formed both the home economics and law departments.

Dabney left the University of Tennessee to take office as President of the University of Cincinnati. The board of Directors of the (then) municipal Universtity unanimously elected him to the presidency of the University January 12, 1904. The occasion of his innauguration was November 16, 1904 on which date the University of Cincinnati Varsity football team played the University of Tennessee Volunteer football team at League Park (Cincinnati). The U.C. Varisty won the game, 35-0. Dabney was president of the University of Cincinnati until 1920.

In 1893 he was named to be Assistant Secretary of Agriculture by President Grover Cleveland.

He died on June 15, 1945.

References

• University of Tennessee Special Collections Library, Knoxville, TN
• The University of Cincinnati Record, Volume 1, No. 3, (Decemeber 1904 - January 1905).

Legacy

Daney Residence Hall at University of Cincinnati is named for him.

Archive

His papers are at the University of Tennessee Special Collections Library in Knoxville