George MacLean
George MacLean, the eighth president of the University of Iowa, is credited not only for setting the tone for the academic direction of the university in the 20th century, but also shaping the way the heart of campus looks today.
MacLean came to UI in 1899 from the University of Nebraska, where he was chancellor. He had an early vision of rebuilding the campus, which at the time included six buildings haphazardly grouped around the Old Capitol, according to a column by Iowa City historian Irving Weber.
MacLean proposed tearing down the buildings then replacing them with what would become the Pentacrest — four large buildings with the Old Capitol serving as their hub. The idea, which originally was proposed by Charles Schaeffer during his time as UI president, was met with vigorous opposition from both the faculty and legislature, Weber wrote.
When Old South Hall and the Medical Building were destroyed by fire after an ice and sleet storm in March 1901, MacLean was able to construct the first phase of the Pentacrest, Schaeffer Hall, in 1904. By the end of MacLean’s presidency in 1911, all four buildings had been built.
Under the direction of MacLean, whom Weber called a “formidable and aggressive” president, UI made strides in its academic prestige, as well. In 1911, his final year as president, the university received high rank for the first time in a survey of the nation’s universities conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Education.
MacLean raised UI’s academic standards, including admission requirements and the level of scholarship at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
In a 1909 address to the American Academy of Medicine in Chicago, which is archived in the University of Iowa Libraries, MacLean laid out his philosophy on higher education:
“In its essence, a liberal education is the same yesterday, today and forever,” said MacLean, who was the author of numerous books, including several English and literature text books. “Its purpose is to liberalize man, to bring him to the height of his capacities, to relate him to the world of mankind and nature, and to orient him in the universe of God.”
MacLean was born in Rockville, Conn., in 1850, and married Clara Stanley Taylor in1874. He resigned as president in 1911 in the midst of a dispute with the Board of Regents, who asked him to step down. MacLean died in Washington, D.C., in 1938 at age 87.