Charles Van Hise

Charles Richard Van Hise
Charles Richard Van Hise
Born	May 29, 1857 Fulton, Wisconsin
Died	November 19, 1918 (1918-11-20) (aged 61) Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Fields	geology
Institutions	University of Wisconsin

Charles Richard Van Hise (May 29, 1857 – November 19, 1918) was an American geologist, academic and progressive. He served as president of the University of Wisconsin (UW) in Madison, Wisconsin, from 1903 to 1918.

Charles Van Hise was born in 1857 in Fulton, Wisconsin, the son of William and Mary, who were farmers. At age 13 he moved with his family to a farm near Evansville, Wisconsin, where he completed his secondary education at the Evansville Seminary. In 1874, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1879. He received another B.S. in 1880 and a M.S. in 1882. In 1892 he became the first to earn a Ph.D. degree from the school, receiving a doctorate in geology. He married Alice Bushnell Ring in 1881. They had three children.

Van Hise joined the faculty of the university immediately after graduating, as an instructor in chemistry and metallurgy (1879–1883). He then proceeded through the academic ranks as an assistant professor of metallurgy (1886–1888), professor of mineralogy and petrography (1888–1892), professor of Archaean and applied geology (1890–1892), and professor of geology (after 1892). Within this time period, he also taught at the University of Chicago as a nonresident professor of structural geology and metamorphic geology.

Upon joining the college faculty in 1879, Van Hise began collaborating with his former geology professor, Roland Irving, on a study of the Pre-Cambrian rock of northern Wisconsin. In 1882, he and Irving began a geological study of the Lake Superior region under the auspices of the United States Geological Survey, which Van Hise continued on his own after Irving's death in 1888. Four years later, he completed and presented reports to the USGS in seven volumes which served as Van Hise's doctoral dissertation.