Sledd, Andrew, 1870-1939

Educator, Bible scholar.

Andrew Sledd, first president of the University of Florida, was born November 7, 1870 in Lynchburg, Virginia. He earned his B.A. and M. A. from Randolph-Macon College in 1894 and did graduate work at Harvard in 1896. From 1897 to 1902, Sledd taught Latin at Emory College. While at Emory, Sledd wrote a critique of race relations in the South that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. Although the article supported the continuation of the "separate but equal" doctrine, Sledd's condemnation of lynching was immediately assailed by many white southerners. Amid a hailstorm of controversy, Sledd resigned his position. He then enrolled in Yale's graduate school and received a Ph. D. in Latin in 1903.

After graduating from Yale, Sledd served briefly as Professor of Greek at Southern College in Alabama before being selected as president of the University of Florida at Lake City in 1904. Soon after his arrival in Florida, Sledd urged the state government to consolidate its institutions of higher learning. He quickly won the support of Governor Napoleon B. Broward, and legislation was passed in 1905 that endowed two universities, one for white males and one for white females. Shortly afterwards, Gainesville was chosen as the site for the men's university and Sledd was selected as the first president of the new University of Florida.

Sledd oversaw the transfer to Gainesville in 1906 and selected the initial faculty, most of whom had been instructors at Lake City. His tenure, though, was brief. Under pressure from the state legislature and the State Superintendent of Public Education, Sledd resigned in 1909 and was replaced by Albert A. Murphree.

Sledd went on to serve as President of Southern College and later had a distinguished career as Professor of Greek and New Testament Literature at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Sledd was also a recognized Bible scholar and a force in ecclesiastical circles in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He died March 6, 1939.