Augustus M. Ryon
| Augustus M. Ryon | |
|---|---|
| 1st President of Montana State University |
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In office 1893–1894 |
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| Succeeded by | James R. Reid |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1862 New York City, New York, United States |
| Died | 1949 (about 87 years) Flushing, New York, United States |
| Spouse(s) | Hariet L. Alward Ryon |
| Children | Frederick L., Winnifred M. |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Profession | Teacher, mining engineer |
| Website | www.montana.edu |
Augustus Meader Ryon (1862–1949) was an American mining engineer who served as the founding president of Montana State University. He also has the distinction of having the shortest tenure of any president of the university, only a single year.
Ryon was born in New York City, New York, in 1862 to John R. and Mary (Chappell) Ryon. He was the second of four children, preceded by his brother Frederick in 1860, and followed by Willie in 1864 and John in 1868. He was raised in Connecticut, where his father was born, and in Brooklyn, New York.
He enrolled in the School of Mines at Columbia University, and graduated in 1886 with a bachelor of science in mining engineering. He was engaged as an assistant engineer on the drinking water supply system in New London, Connecticut, from 1886 to 1887, then worked from 1887 to 1888 as an assistant to F. N. Owen, the chief engineer for the city of New York.
In 1888, Ryon traveled to Montana where he founded the School of Mines at the College of Montana, a Presbyterian college in Deer Lodge, Montana. He was elected second vice-president of the Montana Society of Civil Engineers in 1894, and first vice-president in 1895.
The Agricultural College of the State of Montana (now known as Montana State University) was authorized by the Montana state legislature in 1892, and opened on February 16, 1893. Luther Foster, a horticulturalist and one of two faculty members, was named Acting President. Short on funds, lacking a campus, and with Montana still mostly wilderness without many professionals, the Agricultural College found it difficult to hire faculty. So it began poaching faculty from the College of Montana.
Ryon, too, was poached from the College of Montana. He was named the first president of the college on April 17, 1893. Ryon immediately clashed with the board of trustees and faculty. Where the trustees (mostly businessmen from Bozeman, Montana) wanted the college to focus on agriculture, Ryon pointed out that few of its students intended to go back to farming. While the rapidly expanding faculty wanted to establish a remedial education program to assist unprepared undergraduates (Montana's elementary and secondary public education system was in dire shape at the time), Ryon refused. Ryon was forced out in 1895 and replaced by the Rev. Dr. James R. Reid, a Presbyterian minister who had been president of the Montana College at Deer Lodge since 1890.
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