Category: Presidents
Lemuel Herbert Murlin, Third President
from 1911–1924
Boston University’s third president was another midwestern Methodist minister from a rural background. Lemuel Murlin served as president of Baker University in Kansas from 1893 until 1911, when he assumed the Boston University presidency. He, like Huntington before him, dreamed of a University “in the heart of the city, in the service of the city.” In 1920, he purchased a large tract of land between the Charles River and Commonwealth Avenue, hoping to unite on a permanent campus the colleges and schools scattered throughout Boston. His campaign to raise funds for the new campus, however, fell short, and he resigned in 1924 to accept the presidency at his alma mater, DePauw University.
William Edwards Huntington, Second President
from 1904–1911
William Huntington grew up in a strongly abolitionist farm family in Illinois and served in the Union Army during the Civil War, where he rose from private to first lieutenant. He attended the University of Wisconsin and the Boston University School of Theology. Upon receiving his PhD in 1882, he was appointed BU’s dean of the College of Liberal Arts. He was named the University’s second president in 1904. Huntington defined his tenure as an attempt to capture in higher education the energy of America’s burgeoning cities. He saw BU as a new type of “municipal” university, attentive to the needs and opportunities of urban life.
William Fairfield Warren, BU’s Inaugural President
from 1873–1903
In 1867, William Fairfield Warren became acting president of Boston Theological School, which evolved into Boston University. The former pastor was officially appointed president of BU in 1873. Warren created a distinctive new educational institution, combining the breadth of the American liberal arts college, the inclusion of professional studies typical of the British university, and the focus on original research of the German university. Serving for 30 years, Warren championed higher education for all students regardless of religion, race, or sex. During his administration, BU became the first university anywhere to award a doctor of philosophy to a woman.
