The United States of America has had several presidents who served as the leader of the country without ever having gone to college. Some of these presidents are: Woodrow Wilson, Harry S. Truman, and Christina Hull Paxson. What made these presidents different from other presidents who stepped into the White House without a college degree?
Dr. Lindley
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Lindley’s accomplishments were numerous. He was a leader and prime mover for the establishment of several colleges and a medical school in the southern part of the state. His work also extended to the establishment of orphan homes in France and England.
He served as a city attorney in Nolanville, Texas, and Copperas Cove, Texas. Jim Lindley was also an attorney in Killeen, Texas. For 45 years, he served as legal counsel for the Central Texas College Board of Trustees.
Aside from his legal work, he is active in many foundations and campuses. He has been the mayor of Killeen and Copperas Cove and is the city attorney in Nolanville.
During his time in the medical field, he helped create the free dispensary of the Medical College that treated underprivileged children for free. In addition, he advocated for reform schools for delinquent children. Several of his old students, who were living in nearby towns, planned to attend the University of Athens Commencement in August 1853.
After retiring from the ministry, he continued his work in the health field. He became an expert examiner for the California Dental Board from 1990 to 2006. Currently, he is a member of the Inland Valley Dental Club and is on the Board of Trustees at Lake Michigan College in Berrien County, Michigan.
During his career, he has been a contributor to several publications, including the Southern California Practitioner. Among his notable endeavors, he is credited with introducing a system of registering births and deaths, and helping develop the first health circular warning about scarlet fever.
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson is the twentieth president of the United States. He entered office on March 4, 1913. In his first term, he was credited with reducing tariff rates to a point that would make living for the average American more affordable.
Wilson was also credited with segregating many federal agencies and creating the Internal Revenue Service. His second term, however, saw the beginnings of World War I.
The First World War strained Wilson’s resolve to remain neutral, but he resisted calls for the United States to enter the war. In the meantime, he was developing his own policies to combat unfair business practices and to increase the amount of money available for consumers.
He established the Federal Reserve Act, which helped to create a more flexible and elastic money supply. His Federal Trade Commission also became an important tool for regulating the economy.
In addition to promoting political and economic reform, he was also a strong supporter of a British parliamentary system of government. His dissertation, titled “Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics,” was published as a scholarly study and became a classic of American political science.
Woodrow Wilson’s personal interests included literature, history, and government. He was interested in the French Revolution and British history. He studied these subjects in depth. Besides writing, he was also a keen student of Greek, Latin, and rhetoric.
While he never achieved rapid readership, he was an accomplished essayist. His first serious work was published in the International Review.
Amy Gutmann
Amy Gutmann is the eighth president of the University of Pennsylvania. She was appointed to her position in January 2004. The University of Pennsylvania was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1740. It is the fourth oldest institution of higher learning in the U.S.
Gutmann is a political scientist. Her work has focused on practical ethics, deliberative democracy, and multiculturalism. She has written many books, including Why Deliberative Democracy, Identity in Democracy, Freedom of Association, and Multiculturalism.
Amy Gutmann is one of the most respected and prominent scholars in the United States. She has a PhD in Political Science from Harvard. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, she was raised in Monroe, New York.
She was first in her family to go to college. Her father fled Nazi Germany as a student and settled in New York. In 1971, Gutmann earned her A.B. magna cum laude from Radcliffe College. Later, she received her master’s degree in Political Science from the London School of Economics.
After working as an assistant professor at Princeton, Gutmann became director of its political philosophy program. For most of the 1990s, she was also director of its ethics and public affairs programs.
Gutmann was named one of the 50 greatest leaders in the world in 2018, according to Fortune magazine. Her achievements as an educator and researcher have helped improve access to education. During her time at Penn, she has led the university through several crises, including two pandemics and the recession.
Harry S. Truman
Truman is the last president of the United States who did not have a college degree. He was born in Lamar, Missouri, and raised in Independence, Missouri. His parents were poor farmers. They couldn’t afford a college education for their son.
After his father died in 1914, Harry tried to make ends meet. Despite the lack of education, he was well-read. In the early 1920s, he took night classes at Kansas City Law School.
When he returned home, he tried several business ventures. He partnered with his friend Eddie Jacobson to start a men’s furnishings store. The venture failed. However, they were able to recover from the initial investment.
At the age of 35, Harry Truman became a senator. He was a member of the Democratic Party.
While serving in the Senate, he was the chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. This committee investigated the defense industry and its waste and corruption.
Truman won over his colleagues with his friendliness and attention to his duties in office. He also was a staunch defender of the New Deal gains.
During his first year in office, Truman helped create the United Nations and made a successful attempt to end the war in Europe. After Japan was defeated in 1945, Truman helped construct foreign policies to contain the Soviet Union.
Among his other successes, Truman was instrumental in the passage of two major laws: the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 and the Wheeler-Truman Transportation Act of 1940. It was his liberal legislation that expanded Social Security and raised the minimum wage.
Christina Hull Paxson
A Princeton University economist named Christina Hull Paxson will take over as President of Brown University on July 1. In addition to leading the University, Paxson will also serve as Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Board of Directors, becoming the first U.S. president to hold such a position.
Paxson joined Princeton’s faculty in 1986 as an assistant professor. Her early research focused on international economic issues. She later moved to health economics, analyzing the relationship between socioeconomics and people’s health.
Christina Hull Paxson was born in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Her family lived in a comfortable town, with tree-lined streets, small schools, and convenient access to cultural activities.
When Paxson was a child, she learned to play cello. In high school, she became interested in computer science. By the time she was in graduate school, she had switched her major to economics. After earning an MBA from Columbia Business School, she transferred to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University.
Paxson was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations. She also held positions at the National Institutes of Health, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and the NIA Center for Economics and Demography of Aging at Princeton.
Paxson founded the Center for Health and Wellbeing at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. This interdisciplinary research center established multidisciplinary certificate programs in health.
Darryll J. Pines
Darryll Pines, a renowned aerospace engineer and dean of the engineering school at the University of Maryland, College Park, was appointed as the 34th president of the institution. He will oversee a campus that is home to more than 40,000 students and more than 10,000 faculty members.
During his tenure at the university, Pines has become a leader in science, technology, and engineering education. As an active member of the American Society for Engineering Education, he has testified before Congress on the importance of STEM education. His current research is focused on smart sensors and biologically inspired structures.
After completing his master’s and doctorate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pines joined the University of Maryland as an assistant professor in 1995. He was later hired as the dean of the Clark School of Engineering and remained there for nearly two decades. In 2009, he became the dean of the college, and in July, he was appointed to become the 34th president of the University of Maryland.
Upon his appointment, Pines outlined a twelve-point plan to advance the school’s mission and vision. One of the key initiatives that he has outlined is to create more faculty positions for women and people of color. This is a significant change for a University of Maryland, which traditionally has had a small number of tenured women and persons of color.
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