Hetzel, Ralph Dorn, 1882-1947

Ralph Dorn Hetzel graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1906. He taught English and public speaking at Oregon State College and became a full professor there in 1910. In 1912 he was asked to organize a political science department and in 1913 was made the director of the extension services at Oregon. Hetzel left Oregon to become President of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts in 1917. The College became the University of New Hampshire in 1923.

Ralph Dorn Hetzel was born on December 31, 1882 in the small farming community of Merrill, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Wisconsin, a land grant university. He graduated in 1906 with an A.B. degree from the College of Letters and Science and received his L.LB. in 1908. In 1908 Hetzel joined the English faculty at Oregon State College, becoming full professor of English and political science in 1911. In 1913 he became the director of their extension program and served in that position until 1917. He became president of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 1917 and after nine successful years, became president of Penn State College. Hetzel's education and early career would all help to strengthen his deep beliefs in the necessity and value of public colleges and universities. Throughout his career Hetzel held a firm belief in the value of land grant colleges and universities. Hetzel's strict, spartan fiscal policies gained the support of the state and strengthened state financial commitments as well. Hetzel believed that land grant colleges such as Penn State should meet the needs of all the state's citizens and he wanted the curriculum to bear that out. One of the more significant developments for Penn State during his tenure was the establishment of the extension center, forerunner of the Penn State Commonwealth Campus System. The first of these opened in 1933. Hetzel died from a stroke in October 1947.