LEGGETT, Glenn 1918-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born March 29, 1918, in Ashtabula, OH; died June 2, 2003, in Grinnell, IA. University administrator, educator, and author. Leggett was a former president of Grinnell College during the tumultuous 1960s and early 1970s. He earned his B.A. from Middlebury College in 1940 and, after serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, a Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 1949. During the 1940s he taught English at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Ohio State University. Joining the faculty of the University of Washington in Seattle as an associate professor of English in 1952, Leggett rose to the position of provost in 1963 before accepting the office of president at Grinnell in 1965. He presided over the campus at a difficult time in its history, which included the student protests that in 1970 compelled him to close the campus for ten days and cancel graduation ceremonies. Though some disagreed with his policies, he was still much admired by colleagues and was a progressive in several ways. Leggett, for example, established co-educational residence halls and loosened guidelines in the curriculum. Leaving Grinnell in 1975, he entered the private sector as vice president of corporate communications at Deere & Co., where he retired in 1979, the same year he was named a professor emeritus at Grinnell. Leggett was the author or coauthor of several books, often on the subject of writing, including Prentice-Hall Handbook for Writers (1951; twelfth edition, 1995), Plain English, Please (1966), Years of Turmoil: Years of Change (1978), and Teacher to Teacher: Selected Papers on Teaching, Writing, and Higher Education (1979).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Des Moines Register, June 7, 2003, p. 7.

Washington Post, June 12, 2003, p. B6.