Carmichael, Oliver C. (Oliver Cromwell), 1891-1966

Oliver Cromwell Carmichael, born on 3 October 1891, was an educator who earned his A.B. (1911) and M.A. (1914) degrees from the University of Alabama. He taught German and French at the University of Alabama, 1911-1912, and at Florence Normal School, 1912-1913, before entering Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1913. However, his studies there were interrupted by World War I.

Following the war he taught high school and served as a principal before becoming dean and assistant to the president of Alabama College (now the University of Montevallo) in 1922. From 1926 to 1935 he was President of that institution. In 1935 he was appointed Dean of Vanderbilt University's graduate school, serving in that capacity until 1937. He was also the University's vice chancellor, 1936-1937 and chancellor, 1937-1946. He left Vanderbilt and served as President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, from 1946 to 1953. In 1953 he was named President of the University of Alabama, from which post he retired in 1957.

Carmichael was author of Changing Role of Higher Education (1949), Universities: Commonwealth and American (1959) and Graduate Education: a Critique and a Program (1961). He died on 25 September 1966.

From the guide to the Oliver Cromwell Carmichael collection MSS. 0279., unknown, (W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, The University of Alabama)