Barnaby Keeney

Barnaby Conrad Keeney (October 17, 1914 – June 18, 1980) was president of Brown University from 1955 to 1966. He was known and loved by the student body for openness and his dry wit. As he once observed, "One of the joys of the life of an educator, particularly a president, is the amount of free advice he gets." Keeney then served as president of Claremont Graduate University from 1971 to 1976.

Personal life Keeney was born in Halfway, Oregon on October 17, 1914. He grew up in Hartford, Connecticut where he was a high school track star. He was Greater Hartford champion in the 440‑yard dash in 1931 and he won the state championship in that event in 1932. He graduated from the University of North Carolina first in his class in 1936. He later took a master's degree and doctorate in medieval history at Harvard University, where he taught until 1941.

In 1941 he married Mary Elizabeth Critchfield; they have a son and two daughters. Keeney died on June 18, 1980, in Providence, Rhode Island, at the age of 65.

Career Subsequently, he served as an intelligence officer for the U.S. Army following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He received the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, and the Silver Star while serving with the 35th Infantry in World War II. Keeney initiated a new admissions policy under which 10% of the places in Brown's freshman class (about 650 students) were reserved for youngsters whose grades ordinarily would not qualify them for an Ivy League college—but who exhibit some "outstanding characteristic". They referred to themselves as "Tom Sawyers", many of whom went on to become Brown's most successful graduates.

By expressing his interest in the Dexter Asylum property, Keeney was instrumental in getting the City of Providence to put the property on auction in 1957. Brown won the auction with a bid of $1,000,777, or $25,653 per acre. Brown built a hockey rink, soccer fields, baseball diamonds and other recreational and athletic facilities on the land.

In 1964 he started a "big brother" exchange program with tiny (500 students) Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, the state's only integrated college. Keeney never ducked away from controversy. Although its close relationship with Brown allowed Tougaloo to reap financial and academic rewards including grants from the Ford Foundation, Keeney made sure that the college would "never again be at the center of civil rights activity" and used his influence to retire Dan Beittel from Tougaloo's presidency.

In 1964 he stoutly defended his director of health services, Roswell Johnson, who had prescribed birth control pills for a handful of marriage-bound students at nearby Pembroke College (Brown University), Brown's female counterpart.

Keeney was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1965.

According to a 1978 article in New Times magazine, Keeney's association with the CIA continued during his time at Brown, including a year in 1951 when Keeney left Brown to work full-time for the agency. Keeney denied many of the allegations of the article.

Publications Judgment by Peers 1949 Life And Works Of John Hay, 1838-1905 1961 The Expectations of Education 1973