George Norlin

George Norlin (born April 1, 1871 in Concordia , Kansas , † March 31, 1942 in Boulder , Colorado ) was an American classical philologist and professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder , which he led from 1919 to 1939 as president.

Life

George Norlin was born to Swedish immigrants who ran a farm in Kansas. He received his education in Concordia and Fish Creek and then studied at Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska . After the Bachelor's degree (1893) he worked there as Professor of Greek . In 1896 he went to the University of Chicago , where he taught Greek as a fellow and deepened his studies with Paul Shorey . In 1900 he was with a dissertation on cosmological theories of the Greeks doctorate .

Even before completing his doctorate, Norlin received a professorship in Greek at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1899 , where he spent the rest of his career. In addition to his forty years of teaching, he was also heavily involved in the administration of the university and maintained contacts with other American universities. In 1914, 1917 and 1918 he was acting as president of the university and dean of the graduate school. In 1919 he was elected president and remained in that office until 1939.

During his long presidency, Norlin was heavily involved in higher education and educational policy. During the 1920s, when the Ku Klux Klan became a major political influence in Colorado state (especially Governor Clarence Morley ), Norlin successfully fought efforts to remove all Catholic and Jewish university teachers. Norlin also managed to expand the library holdings and expand the university campus during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In 1932/1933, Norlin accepted an invitation to Germany, where he taught as a Roosevelt visiting professor at Berlin University . In Berlin he became aware of the rising movement of the National Socialists and the anti-Semitic tendencies in society. During the time of National Socialism he wrote memoranda about the dangers of 'Hitlerism' .

In recognition of his achievements as a researcher and university president, Norlin received several honorary doctorates.

Fonts (selection)

• Integrity in education and other papers . New York 1926
• Isocrates . Three volumes, New York / London 1928–1945 ( Loeb Classical Library )
• Fascism and citizenship . Chapel Hill 1934
• Hitlerism: why and whither; some aspects of a religious revolution . London 1935
• Things in the saddle: selected essays and addresses . Cambridge (MA) 1940
• The quest of American life . Boulder 1945

literature

• Joy King: Norlin, George . In: Ward W. Briggs (Ed.): Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists. Greenwood Press, Westport CT et al. 1994, ISBN 0-313-24560-6 , pp. 446-448.

Web links

• Entry on George Norlin in the Database of Classical Scholars (English)
• Literature by George Norlin in the catalog of the German National Library
• University of Colorado at Boulder exhibition