Harold W. Dodds

Harold Willis Dodds (June 28, 1889 – October 25, 1980) was the fifteenth President of Princeton University from 1933 to 1957.

Dodds was born on June 28, 1889 in Utica, Pennsylvania, the son of a professor of Bible Studies at Grove City College. After receiving his bachelor's degree at Grove City College in 1909 and teaching public school for two years, he received his MA at Princeton in 1914 and his PhD, in Political Science, at the University of Pennsylvania in 1917. After receiving his PhD, he married Margaret Murray.

Dodds served in the U.S. Food Administration during World War I. After the war, he taught at Western Reserve University, then became the secretary of the National Municipal League until 1928. In this position, he met Charles Evans Hughes, who was president of the league at that time. Hughes introduced him to electoral problems in Latin America. Dodds soon became an advisor to the President of Nicaragua, helping to draft the electoral law of 1923 and supervise elections in 1928, and also became involved in the electoral law of other Latin American nations.

In 1925, Dodds joined Princeton as a professor of politics and became a full professor in 1927. In 1930, he was appointed the first chair of the School of Public and International Affairs, which is now commonly known as the Woodrow Wilson School. He was appointed president in 1933 during the midst of the Great Depression, and continued serving as president until 1957. He was a very popular president throughout his tenure.

During Dodds's tenure, the university faced many hardships. The Great Depression caused great financial uncertainty, leading Dodds to establish annual giving. Although the program started out modestly, it soon became a major source of income for the university. Also, during World War II, Princeton established an accelerated program to allow students to graduate early to join the armed forces. Despite facing the Great Depression and two wars, the university continued to grow during this period, adding four new departments in aeronautical engineering, Near Eastern studies, religion, and music.

During a two-year period from 1946 to 1947, the bicentennial anniversary of Princeton was being celebrated. During this time, there were three major convocations and almost continuous conferences. Dodds established bicentennial preceptorships to allow young faculty members to spend a year in research.

Dodds was a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1936 to 1955.

Dodds was presiding president at the height of the Red Scare, and was apparently complicit, like many U.S. university presidents, with the HCUA's prosecutions. In a 1949 speech at the University of Hawaii, Dodds argued that Communists had surrendered their rights as persons. In a speech that same year in San Francisco, he claimed that Communists were unfit to teach in schools or universities. In December 1950, when Princeton physicist David Bohm was arrested for his war-time connection to the Berkeley Radiation Lab, Dodds released a statement suspending Bohm "from all teaching and other duties" and in "an ominous footnote mentioned that Bohm's appointment was due to terminate in June 1951." Indeed, though Bohm was acquitted on all counts in May 1951, Dodds ensured that his contract was not renewed.

Dodds retired in 1957 and was succeeded by Robert F. Goheen. He died at his home in Hightstown, New Jersey in 1980.