Battle, William James, 1870-1955

Battle, born in Raleigh, North Carolina, received a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1888 and a Ph. D. from Harvard in 1893, the same year he went to the University of Texas as associate professor of Greek.

Dean of the College of Arts by 1908 and Dean of Faculty by 1911, Battle was elected acting president of the university in 1914. After a controversial two years he stepped down and in 1917 went to the University of Cincinnati until 1920 when he returned to UT as professor of classical languages and chairman of the Faculty Building Committee. He retired in 1948 but remained as a professor emeritus and returned to North Carolina shortly before his death in 1955.