Holdings:
* UM-System
* Columbia
The University of Missouri President's Residence on Francis Quadrangle, 1900.
University Archives, C:0/47/2.
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Record Group: 4 UW
Record's Title: President's Office
Historical Note
The 1839 "Geyer Act," which created the University of Missouri, stated, in part: "The [University of Missouri Board of] Curators shall have power, whenever they deem it expedient, to appoint a president of the university." The Curators were additionally given authority to set the president's term of office and his salary. The President's duties were to include, "the care and management of the colleges, seminaries, grounds, library, philosophical and chemical apparatus, mathematical and other scientific instruments of the university." It was also his responsibility to "make and transmit to the curators, on or before the first day of October in every year" a report on the condition of the colleges, departments, and property under his supervision.
The first President of the University of Missouri was John Hiram Lathrop, a native of New York State and graduate of Yale College. He accepted the Board of Curators' offer of the Presidency, by correspondence, in November of 1840. His appointment was to be for six years with compensation set at twenty-five hundred dollars per annum. Lathrop arrived in Columbia and began his tenure as University President in February of 1841.
The office of MU President proved to be a difficult and controversial one for many of its early occupants. During the mid-1800s alone, three of the University's Presidents were removed from office before the expiration of their terms due to politically-motivated intervention on the part of the State General Assembly and Governor, or as a result of Civil War era military authorities exercising martial law powers.
Successive Presidents have been instrumental, often essential, to the University's growth and advancement. Their efforts have done much to help assure the University of Missouri gained a position of regional and national prominence among graduate and research universities.
NOTE: In 1963, the University of Missouri expanded to a four campus system and the office of University President became one with new, system-wide, responsibilities. The bulk of record sub-groups pertaining to Presidents whose tenure began after 1963 are to be found with system-wide (UW:) holdings.
