R. F. (Richard Frederick) Scholz

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 24, 1880, Richard Frederick Scholz earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1902 and a master’s in classics in 1903. He became a Rhodes Scholar the following year and continued his studies at Oxford and in Europe before returning to the United States to teach.

Scholz taught at the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, and later served on the history faculty at the University of Washington. In 1921 he became president of Reed College, where he worked to reshape the curriculum into a more integrated course of study and reorganized the faculty into broader academic divisions.

His time at Reed was brief but influential. The curricular structure he championed left a long aftereffect on the college, even though he died young, on July 23, 1924, in Portland, Oregon, while still serving as president.