Charles Russ Richards, who led Lehigh through the Great Depression, was Lehigh’s sixth president.  During his tenure, from 1922 to 1935, the first graduate degrees were awarded to women.

When Lehigh faced a shortage of students as a result of the country’s severe economic slump, Rush took steps to help with recruitment while maintaining university standards – creating new fellowships and scholarships, allowing the deferment of tuition payments, establishing admissions and career placement offices and adding two new engineering curriculums. 

Rush also oversaw construction of the Alumni Memorial building and Packard Laboratory, both completed in 1925. Concerned too about the Linderman Library, which had fallen into disrepair, he appointed a full-time library director, made plans for making books more accessible to students and oversaw an addition, completed in 1929. 

Richards House, a first-year residence hall, honors his memory.