Charles J. Ping (Acting President), B.D., Ph.D., served 1968-1969

Charles Ping earned his B.D. from Louisville Seminary and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Duke.  He assumed the role of Dean at Tusculum College in 1966 and worked as a minister at area churches.  In Trout’s resignation letter, he recommended Ping to be President of Tusculum College.  Ping served one year as president before resigning his presidency at Tusculum College.

Douglas C. Trout, B.A., B.D., Ph.D., served 1965-1968

Douglas Trout received his B.A. from DePaul University in 1952 and his B.D. from McCormick Seminary in 1957.  He served as an Army chaplain and Presbyterian minister before continuing his education at Michigan State University.  At Michigan State, Trout worked as a student advisor and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the School for Advanced Studies.  In 1965, he earned his Ph.D. while working at Michigan State.  When he arrived at Tusculum College, Trustees, faculty and students met him with great confidence.  He was 34 years old and better in-tune to students and their needs.  Trout’s first duties were to restore the reputation of Tusculum College and remove Tusculum College from SACS probation by improving faculty and administration.  To recruit more educated faculty and staff, Trout increased pay rates by 46 percent.  Trout saw the Charles Oliver Gray Complex built, updated/remodeled many campus buildings, added onto Katherine Hall, increased student enrollment, and converted the Mundy House into student housing.  He also began fundraising for the “SUB” (Student Union Building), but construction on this building was not completed for another 10 years.  Trout focused Tusculum College’s student recruitment efforts on more residential students and away from commuters.  After Tusculum College, he created a consulting firm to help other colleges caught in troubled times.

Raymond C. Rankin, B.A., D.D., served 1951-1965

Raymond Rankin grew up in Tusculum.  His parents, Tusculum graduates, raised their family near the college and his father worked for Tusculum College.  Raymond attended Tusculum’s Preparatory Department.  He then studied music at Tusculum College and graduated in 1914.  After Tusculum, Rankin studied theology at McCormick Seminary in Chicago.  He received his D.D. from Tusculum College in 1927.  Rankin assumed a pastorate in Montana before leaving to perform Y.M.C.A. war work at Camp Grant, Ill.  After Camp Grant, he worked as an Assistant Minister at the First Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kan.S until 1927.  He later pastored at the First Presbyterian Church in Detroit and became a Board member at Tusculum College.

The Board of Trustees asked Rankin to fill the presidency for one year provided that a merger with King College, Washington College Academy and Tusculum College occurred. The merger never took place, but Rankin stayed on as President.  Rankin spent his first two years building financial resources, improving Tusculum’s credit rating, eliminating debt, gaining supporters, and restoring relations with the Presbyterian Church.  Rankin proposed having women represented on the Board and introduced a rotation system for Trustees.  Rankin improved student enrollment, oversaw integration, increased the number of foreign students, improved the financial standing of the college, increased the library’s holdings, and saw the construction of Katherine Hall and Annie H. Byrd Fine Arts Building.

Leslie K. Patton (Acting President), served 1950-1951

Leslie Patton received his M.A. from Emory College and his Ph.D. from Columbia.  After graduating from Columbia, Patton served in the U.S.O. until 1945.  Shortly after leaving the U.S.O., Patton became Dean at Tusculum College and earned the respect of faculty, staff and students.  When President Davies resigned, the Board asked Patton to fill the presidency.  American colleges at the time suffered from rising debts and decreased enrollment due to the Korean War.  Sadly, Tusculum was not immune to this national trend despite Patton’s best efforts.  After his presidency, Patton became Vice President and Dean of Tusculum College.

George K. Davies, Ph.D., served 1946-1950

George Davies graduated from Princeton in 1922 and from McCormick Seminary in 1925.  He served churches in Nebraska, Iowa and Pennsylvania.  In 1942, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburg.  He became the first Tusculum College president to hold a Ph.D.  Davies had served as a Navy chaplain in 1943 and spent two years on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands.  His naval career culminated with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander.  A month after being discharged, he assumed the presidential duties of Tusculum College and was formally inaugurated on October 19, 1946.  His presidency constantly experienced grand achievements and tremendous setbacks.  Davies’s presidency gave Tusculum College tenure, a retirement system and free tuition for the children of faculty.

John McSween, D.D., served 1942-1944

John McSween grew up in Timmonsville, S.C. and graduated from Davidson College in 1903.  Following his graduation, he became an active businessman in his hometown. McSween graduated from Theological Seminary at Columbia, S.C. in 1913.  He became ordained in 1913 and pastored in Dillion, S.C., Rowland, N.C., Clemson University, Anderson and Chester, S.C.  McSween served as an Army chaplain on the Mexican border and in France from 1917 to 1919.  He completed graduate work at the University of South Carolina and at Biblical Seminary in New York, where he earned his D.D. in 1930.  Presbytery College in Clinton, SC hired McSween to fill the role of President from 1928 to1935.  When McSween took over the presidency at Tusculum College, he found the college on good financial grounds and many students leaving to join the military.  (Pearl Harbor had been bombed six months earlier, and many students felt a calling to join the military.)  McSween encouraged students to stay and even asked professors to talk with students about completing their college education before joining the military.  McSween retired due to health reasons in December 1944.

Charles Albert Anderson, D.D., served 1931-1942

Before Charles Oliver Gray left, he found a new president to facilitate the transition from his administration to the next.  Gray selected Charles Anderson as his successor. Anderson, a native of Orange, N.J., graduated from Williams College in 1912 and Auburn Theological Seminary in 1916.  He became minister of Watertown, N.Y. and Maplewood, N.J.  He worked at The University of Pennsylvania as a Student Pastor in 1921.  While at The University of Pennsylvania, he earned a Masters in Psychology.  Anderson took over the presidency during the beginning of the Great Depression.  His genuine interest in students and their preparedness for a challenging work place prompted his monitoring of students’ abilities, progress and career objectives.  He increased the academic standards, hired more professors with terminal degrees, initiated new accounting practices and improved the library.  Anderson’s innovation and forward thinking lead to an increase in administrative and non-teaching staff.  Anderson wanted to build new academic buildings and dorms, significantly grow the endowment and increase pay rates, but he never found the funding for such projects in the midst of the Great Depression and the beginning of WWII.  He resigned on January 15, 1942 to assume the presidency of Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Jere A. Moore (Acting President), served 1927-1928 and 1944-1946

Jere A. Moore, nephew of President Jeremiah Moore (1882-1902), served as Acting President from 1927 to 1928.  In 1927, the Board of Trustees decided to give President Gray a year of leave to restore his health.  The Board hired Jere Moore to fill Gray’s shoes for that brief time. Gray was unable to rest due to his worry of the college’s finances and spent his leave fundraising.

Charles Oliver Gray, B.A., B.D., M.A., D.D., LL.D., served 1908-1931

Charles Gray began life on June 3, 1867 in Heuveton, N.Y.  He graduated in 1890 from Hamilton College in New York.  He then attended from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and graduated in 1894.  He earned his M.A. degree at Hamilton College in 1895 and completed post-graduate work at Columbia University and New York University.  He married Florence Irene Rollins of Yonkers, N.Y. in June 6, 1893 and had three sons.  Gray became ordained to the Presbyterian ministry in 1893 and pastored at First Church in Smithtown Branch, N.Y. from 1894 to 1903.  In 1903, he moved to Marshall, NC to preach at Oakland Heights Church in Asheville, N.C. from 1907 to 1908.  He received his D.D. from Hamilton College in 1908 and his L.L.D. from Tusculum College in 1920.  Gray served on the Education Committee in the Holston Presbytery and learned of Tusculum College.  He became Greeneville and Tusculum’s President in 1908 and oversaw the merger with Washington College and the dissolution of the merger. Gray played a pivotal role in increasing the endowment, enrollment, pay rates and achieved SACS accreditation.  Gray participated in the Religious Education Association, Southern Sociological Congress, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Phi Beta Kappa, Sons of the American Revolution, Tennessee Historical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  He retired from the presidency in 1931 and continued to fundraise for Tusculum College until his death in 1936.

Samuel Andrew Coile, B.A., M.A., D.D., served 1902-1907

Samuel Coile, born January 18, 1857, grew up in Dandridge, Tenn.  He and three of his siblings attended Tusculum College.  After Coile graduated from Tusculum in 1879, he attended Lane Seminary and McCormick Seminary.  He served on the Board of Trustees and taught Greek for two years at Tusculum College before becoming President.  After Tusculum College, he became president of Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tenn. from 1914 to1916.  Coile held pastorates at Greeneville and Knoxville and in Sheffield, Ala.  Later, he preached at a large church in Missouri.  He received his D.D. from Gale College.  Moore married Mary C. Speck on June 30, 1887 and fathered four children.  He died in 1923.