Blaisdell, James Arnold, 1867-1957

James A. Blaisdell, founder of the Group Plan of the Claremont Colleges, grew up in Beloit, Wisconsin as a Congregational minister's son and graduated from Beloit College in 1889. He graduated from Hartford Theological Seminary and was ordained into the ministry in 1892, after which he served in pastorates in Wisconsin and Michigan. In 1903 he became a faculty member of Beloit College where he remained until 1910 when he accepted the presidency of Pomona College in Claremont, California. The pressure to increase enrollment at Pomona College in the early 1920s led him to consider establishing a group of colleges based somewhat on the arrangement of Oxford University and its colleges. The Claremont Colleges' Group Plan began with the establishment of the central coordinating institution, called The Claremont Colleges, and the Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University) in 1925, and Scripps College in 1926. His vision of a cluster of small independent colleges continued with the founding of Claremont Men's College in 1946, Harvey Mudd College in 1955, Pitzer College in 1963, and Keck Graduate Institute for Applied Life Sciences in 1997.