Theodore Friend

Theodore Wood Friend III (August 27, 1931 – November 4, 2020) was an American historian, novelist, and teacher, and a former president of Swarthmore College.

Early life and education He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Theodore Jr. and Jessica H. (née Merrick) Friend (known as Dorie). He attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He graduated from Williams College with a B.A. in 1953 and from Yale University with a Ph.D. in 1958.

Career In 1959, Friend joined the history faculty of the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he taught for 14 years. He was a Fulbright Scholar in the Philippines, where his work formed the basis for his first book, Between Two Empires: The Ordeal of the Philippines, 1929–1946 (1965). It won the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American History, Foreign Policy, and Diplomacy.

He was president emeritus of Eisenhower Fellowships; he then continued as a trustee of its national and international board. He was also a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Friend chaired the review panel for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. In 2004 he served as distinguished visiting professor of Southeast Asian studies at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies.

President of Swarthmore College In 1973, Friend was selected to serve as Swarthmore College’s eleventh president. He faced a number of challenges. Just a few years before, his predecessor, Courtney Smith, had died in his office during a student protest, and another predecessor had held the position only briefly. Within a year of his taking office, the value of the college's endowment dropped more than 50%. The country was also in the midst of the Vietnam War and the Watergate crisis; confidence in the nation's leadership was at a low ebb. Six weeks after he began work in Parrish Hall, Friend found that his office had been trashed by students who were protesting America's engagement in Vietnam — a war that he had long publicly opposed.

Although he acknowledged that his years in office were difficult, Friend accomplished much during his tenure. He reinvigorated the Honors Program, successfully completed the college's $30 million Program for Swarthmore campaign, and oversaw a significant increase in admissions applications, which ran counter to national trends.

Priorities for the Program for Swarthmore campaign included new scholarships, professorships, and curriculum development. The Program also supported construction of Cornell Science Library, Ware Pool, and Mertz Hall, as well as improvements to several academic buildings. Upon the campaign's conclusion in 1981, the board of managers honored Friend and his wife, a vital presence on campus, by creating the Theodore and Elizabeth Friend Scholarship. It is awarded annually on the basis of financial need to a worthy student. Although the suit was ultimately decided in the college's favor, it exposed some concerning practices. In response, Friend established a new, part-time position for an equal opportunity officer. The college also adopted a nondiscrimination employment policy. Friend held open office hours for students and took an active interest in student concerns. Together with his wife Elizabeth Friend, he regularly hosted salons in their home. He also edited a collection of essays, Religion and Religiosity in the Philippines and Indonesia (2006). And in 2011, he published Woman, Man, and God in Modern Islam, a comparative study of the life of women in Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey.

Yet Friend, who lived in Villanova, was never far from campus for long. In 2005, he established the Theodore Friend and Elizabeth Pierson Friend Scholarship for a student from an Islamic country or a student engaged in Islamic studies. He attended the presidential inaugurations of Rebecca Chopp in 2009 and Valerie Smith in 2015. He also spoke on campus in 2012 about his journeys across Asia and the Middle East.

Personal life In 1960, he married Elizabeth, who died in 2003. They had three children: Elizabeth, Pier, and the writer Tad Friend.

Works