Ralph Waldo Swetman

Ralph Waldo Swetman (November 10, 1886 – 1957) was an American educator and president of several teachers colleges in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

Life Swetman was born on November 10, 1886, at a farm near Camden, New York. He attended Camden High School and spent a year at Colgate Academy before transferring to Hamilton College. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1907 with a Phi Beta Kappa key.

He had several principalships in New York, first in New York Mills and then in Groton, followed by a return to Camden and four years at Palmyra. There, he met and married Alice Pierson. In academics, Swetman introduced a grade point average system, academic probation, and an honor roll and raised qualifications for full-time faculty members. Meanwhile, the school grew in other ways; a women's athletic association was created in 1925, and Humboldt staged its first intercollegiate football contest in 1927.

At this time, he also accepted a summer assignment at the territorial normal school at Honolulu, Hawaii, now part of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He focused on the development of good teacher-training programs and attempted to build a student-centered institution. He also conceived of a self-supported summer session at the school.

Oswego State In 1933, Swetman left Tempe to head the Oswego State Normal School in Oswego, New York; he was its fourth principal. He was sought at this time by two normal schools in New York, and when asked which one was the greater challenge to lead, he replied, "Oswego".

The Swetman administration, which lasted until 1947, confronted an institution that had lagged in adapting to higher educational standards. In 1926, the American Association of Teachers Colleges increased its standards and thus kept teachers colleges par with liberal arts schools in regards to faculty preparation. However, Oswego State had just one doctorate on faculty; more than half had no degrees. Swetman ordered that no faculty member who did not get a master's degree would stay beyond 1935, and he also made it clear that he wanted more men on staff. Many of the longtime faculty of the school resigned in response, but the effect of the decision was to catapult Oswego State into the top 20% of teachers colleges in the country. ) and SUNY Oswego (Swetman Hall, completed in 1963). The latter building no longer exists separately, having been folded into the larger Campus Center.