Robert K. Carr (1908-1979), widely respected academician and ninth president of Oberlin College, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on February 15, 1908. He received his primary and secondary education in Cleveland and East Cleveland. He attended Dartmouth College (A.B. 1929) and Harvard University (A.M. 1930, Ph D. 1935), and was the recipient of six honorary degrees, including one from Dartmouth College (LL.D, 1960).

From 1931-1937 Carr taught at the University of Oklahoma at Norman. In 1937, he returned to his alma mater, Dartmouth, where he taught in the Department of Political Science (Government) for the next 23 years. During this period Carr produced a prodigious body of work, which earned him a national reputation in the field as a scholar and practitioner of civil liberties. Carr authored three principal books, The Supreme Court and Judicial Review (1942); Federal Protection of Civil Rights (1947); and The House Committee on Un-American Activities (1952); and he co-authored four others, American Democracy in Theory and Practice (1951, 1971); Civil Liberties Under Attack (1953); Foundations of Freedom (1958); and Aspects of Liberty (1958). “American Democracy…,” with Marver Bernstein (past President of Brandeis University), was one of the most widely used introductory-level college textbooks in political science and government.

Carr also made a major contribution to the work of the Commission on Civil Rights during the Truman Administration. He served as its executive secretary and was the principal author of the Federal report titled To Secure These Rights.

Inaugurated as the ninth president of Oberlin College in 1960, Carr’s charge was to restore an academic character to the presidency and direct the process of administrative change on the Oberlin College campus. Over the next decade the physical plant saw impressive growth and modernization in both teaching and dormitory facilities, with 15 new buildings completed. Two national fund-raising efforts—to raise $7.5 million and $6.5 million, respectively—were successfully completed. A capital gifts campaign followed to raise $15 million for a men’s gymnasium (Philips Physical Education Center) and for a central library (Mudd Center). The market value of the endowment increased by approximately 63 percent and the general budget rose from almost $5 million in 1959-60 to almost $11 million in 1969.

At this time, Oberlin led liberal arts colleges in widening student participation in the process of educational change. Student representatives were given full voting membership in the divisional faculties and general faculty. Students served on nearly all college committees as voting members. Even the Board of Trustees was expanded to include class trustees, one from each of the last three graduation classes to serve three-year terms.

Under a report prepared for the Board of Trustees, which advanced administrative reorganization of the college, new administrative departmental units were created during the “Sixties.” New positions created included the following: dean of students, provost, director of financial aid, director of administrative services, personnel officer, and publications director. Functions of other offices were also redefined, transferred, or eliminated (e.g., Office of the Secretary, Business Manager, and the Prudential Committee of the Board of Trustees). The closing of the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology represented one of the major divisional changes. It merged with the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University in 1966. Additionally, the Schauffler Division of Christian Education, part of GST since 1954, was ultimately placed at The Defiance College, Defiance, Ohio.

During the Vietnam years, Carr clashed with students as he tried to provide an “institutional definition of the proper role and tactics of social protest and dissent in the academic community.” Ultimately, campus demonstrations over the prolonged war in Southeast Asia, along with the polarization of the college community, prevented Carr from completing his agenda for change. In November 1970, Carr was forced to resign as President of Oberlin College.

Carr subsequently joined the American Council on Education (ACE) in Washington, D.C. as executive associate. Previously, he had served as a Trustee (1964-1967) and Research Scholar (1970) for ACE. At the Council, he directed a study of the future of the academic profession. His work resulted in co-authoring a book (with Daniel K. VanEyck) titled Collective Bargaining Comes to the Campus, 1973.

Coming off a very active presidency, Carr also kept himself busy on other fronts in retirement. He was trustee and vice chairman of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1964-70), a member of the American Political Science Association (1948-50), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1955-). In addition, he was a member of the Visiting Committee of the Department of Government at Harvard (1965-70), the Advisory Committee on Higher Education of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (1967-68), the Advisory Board of the U.S. Naval Academy (1969-71), and the Board of Massachusetts Maritime Academy (1973-78).

In the spring of 1975, he returned to Oberlin College as Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Government. He taught two sections of a course on Constitutional Law, and he made use of the Olympic-sized swimming pool bearing his name. In retirement, beginning in early 1978, he also served as a consultant to the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. For the association, he designed a program to assist academic boards of trustees in evaluating their own procedures, responsibilities, and performances.

Robert K. Carr married Olive Grabill (see biographical sketch) on August 25, 1933. They had three children: Norman, Elliot, and Robert.

Robert K. Carr died in Elyria, Ohio on February 21, 1979, after a grave illness. He was survived by a wife, Olive, who passed away in January 2003.

Biographical Sketch for Olive Grabill Carr: Olive Grabill Carr, the daughter of Ethelbert Vincent and Elizabeth (Ziegler) Grabill, was born on September 23, 1907 in Boston, Massachusetts. According to Olive, she came to Oberlin the long way around. Her grandfather, Major Elliot Finley Grabill, Oberlin class of 1862, served in the Union Army under General Giles W. Shurtleff. He was head of a Black company and if captured he would probably have been shot by the Confederate Army. Her grandmother, Anna Jenney, was also a member of the class of 1862. Olive’s father, Ethelbert Vincent Grabill (1896) was separated from Oberlin College in May of his senior year for walking in the same direction at the same time at the same pace with a member of the opposite sex. Her brother Elliot married an Oberlinian, Martha Loomis (1944) and her sister Elizabeth (Betty) Grabill graduated from Oberlin in 1934.

Olive Grabill Carr attended her mother’s alma mater, Wellesley College. In addition to her A.B. from Wellesley (1929), Olive Carr earned a B.S. degree from Simmons College and an M.A. in social work from Howard University. She came to Oberlin in 1960 with her husband (m. 1933) Robert Kenneth Carr, the ninth president of Oberlin College. She shared President Carr’s life-long commitment to civil rights and social justice and was his steadfast partner and collaborator throughout his distinguished career. Mrs. Carr was an active social worker at the Child Guidance Clinic in Dover, N.H., during her husband’s long tenure at Dartmouth College where he was a professor prior to his appointment to the Oberlin Presidency in 1960.

Mrs. Carr reached out to the Oberlin student body through weekly luncheons with senior girls held in her home—a tradition she brought from her days at Wellesley College. Despite the turbulence of the era in which she and Robert Carr were in the President’s house, she defended both the majority of Oberlin students as well behaved, responsible, and thoughtful individuals and her husband’s actions to promote a more open campus environment. During her husband’s tenure as president of Oberlin College, she worked hard to achieve a balance between her individual self and her public life.

Mrs. Carr died in Cleveland, Ohio on January 8, 2003, where she had lived since 1979. She is buried with her husband (d. 1979) in Westwood Cemetery, Oberlin. She is survived by her three sons, Norman, Elliot, and Robert, seven grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.