Austin Scott (Rutgers)

Austin Scott (August 10, 1848 – August 15, 1922) was the tenth President of Rutgers College (now Rutgers University), serving from 1891 to 1906.

Scott was born in Toledo, Ohio, to Jeremiah Austin Scott and Sarah Remey. His birth name was Frank Austin Scott, but he eventually dropped the use of his first name.

Scott received a baccalaureate degree from Yale College in 1869 and earned a Master of Arts (M.A.) from the University of Michigan in 1870.

Scott studied at the University of Berlin and the University of Leipzig, receiving a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from Leipzig in 1873. While in Germany, he assisted the historian George Bancroft, then American minister to Germany, in preparing the tenth volume of History of the United States. He was also charged with the responsibility of carrying dispatches to Washington, DC, with the decisions of William I, German Emperor. On his return to the United States, Scott was a German instructor at the University of Michigan from 1873 to 1875, and then, for seven years, an associate in history at Johns Hopkins University. During this period he continued as assistant to Bancroft, assembling and arranging historical material for his History of the Constitution of the United States.

In 1882, Scott married Anna Prentiss Stearns and they had seven children.

In 1883, Scott was appointed to the faculty of Rutgers College as a Professor of History, Political Economy, and Constitutional Law, and was elected to succeed Merrill Edward Gates in 1891.

During Scott's tenure, Rutgers received a generous gift from Robert Francis Ballantine (1836–1905), a wealthy brewer from Newark, New Jersey, and College Trustee, to construct a gymnasium on the campus. A private gift from Ralph and Elizabeth Rodman Voorhees provided funds for the construction of a library to replace the overcrowded one established in the Kirkpatrick Chapel in 1873. By 1906, Scott resigned as President and returned to teaching political science, constitutional law, international law and civics. For sixteen years he carried on his teaching and provided administrative assistance to his successor, William H. S. Demarest.

Scott served as the Mayor of New Brunswick, New Jersey from 1912 to 1915. He died in Granville, Massachusetts, in 1922 at his summer home. His widow died on January 23, 1933.