Franklin S. Harris

Franklin S. Harris

Harris pictured in The Banyan 1923, BYU yearbook
President of
Utah State University
In office
1945–1950
Preceded by Elmer George Peterson
Succeeded by Louis Linden Madsen
President of
Brigham Young University
In office
July 1921 – June 1945[1]
Preceded by George H. Brimhall
Succeeded by Howard S. McDonald
Personal details
Born (1884-08-29)August 29, 1884
Benjamin, Utah
Died April 18, 1960(1960-04-18) (aged 75)
Salt Lake City, Utah

Franklin Stewart Harris (August 29, 1884 – April 18, 1960) was president of Brigham Young University (BYU) from July 1921 until June 1945,[1] and president of Utah State University from 1945 to 1950.

His administration was the longest in BYU history and saw the granting of the first master's degrees. Under his administration the school moved towards being a full university. He set up several colleges, such as the College of Fine and Performing Arts with Gerrit De Jong as the founding dean.

Harris was an agricultural scientist, holding a doctorate in agronomy from Cornell University.[2] He had served as the agriculture department head and head of the experiment station at Utah State Agricultural College and left BYU to become president of that institution.

The Harris Fine Arts Center on BYU's Provo campus is named after him.

Early life

Harris was born in Benjamin, Utah Territory, United States.[3] In the 1890s his family moved to the Mormon colonies in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Harris did his early studies at BYU before going on to receive his doctorate from Cornell. His second son Chauncy Harris, born in 1914, became a geographer.[4]

BYU presidency

One of Harris's first announcements on coming to campus was a need to make BYU a center of religious scholarship and a desire to have a broad spectrum of religious books in the library.[1] The first building built on BYU campus during Harris's administration was the Heber J. Grant building which at that point was a library. This was the first BYU building built as a library, but it soon became too small to hold all the books Harris had managed to have the University acquire.

In June 1945 Harris left BYU to assume the presidency of Utah State Agricultural College.

Politics

In 1938 Harris was the Republican candidate for United States Senate in Utah. He lost to Democrat Elbert Thomas.[5]

Other church service

In 1923 Harris was made a member of the General Board of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association.[3]

In 1926 he served as a missionary in Japan. He also served a short mission among the Latter-day Saints in Syria in 1927.[3]

International work

In 1929, Harris traveled to the Soviet Union as part of an expedition to study the agricultural potential of what would become the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in 1934.[6]

In the early 1950s Harris worked in Iran, where he served as the president of the LDS Church branch headquartered in Tehran, as reported in the October 1951 general conference. He died in 1960.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Bergera, Gary James; Priddis, Ronald (1985). "Chapter 1: Growth & Development". Brigham Young University: A House of Faith. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. ISBN 0-941214-34-6. OCLC 12963965.
  2. ↑ Winters, Charlene (Fall 1998). "Franklin S. Harris". BYU Magazine. Retrieved 2009-12-10.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Jenson, Andrew. "HARRIS, Franklin Stewart," Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News Press, 1936) Vol 4, p. 240
  4. ↑ Mikesell, Marvin W. (2004). "In Memoriam: Chauncy Dennison Harris (1914-2003)". Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 94 (4): 982–991. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.2004.00444.x.
  5. ↑ Wilkinson, Ernest L., BYU: The First 100 Years (Provo: BYU Press, 1975) Vol. 2, p. 240
  6. ↑ Rubinstein, Joshua; Naumov, Vladimir Pavlovich (2005). Stalin's Secret Pogrom. Yale University Press.
Academic offices
Preceded by
Elmer George Peterson		 President of Utah State University
1945–1950 		Succeeded by
Louis Linden Madsen
Preceded by
George H. Brimhall		  President of Brigham Young University 
July 1921 – June 1945 		Succeeded by
Howard S. McDonald
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