Thomas Messinger Drown, Lehigh’s fourth president (1895-1904), was born and raised in Philadelphia. Drown studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania before moving on to post-graduate work at Yale and Harvard. He held teaching positions at Harvard, Lafayette College and MIT, where Drown helped establish the chemical engineering department. In 1895, Drown became president of Lehigh.
Drown’s time at Lehigh was characterized by financial difficulty, as the Panic of 1893 had devastated the University’s stock holdings in the Lehigh Valley Railroad. He was, however, able to lead the university to growth in enrollment, academics and physical size. Drown’s tenure saw the establishment of the department of zoology and biology, the development of the curriculum leading to a degree in arts and engineering, and the completion of Williams Hall.
Drown Hall, currently the home of the English department and the Writing and Math Center, is named in his honor.
