RARE \"8th President of Tufts\" Nils Wessell Hand Signed 3X5 Card For Sale

Up for sale a RARE "8th President of Tufts University" Nils Wessell Hand Signed 3X5 Card.

ES-4590

Nils

Yngve Wessell (April 14, 1914 –

March 4, 2007) was an American psychologist and the eighth president of Tufts University from 1953 to 1966, overseeing its

transformation from a small liberal arts college to

an internationally known research university. Wessell was born in Warren, Pennsylvania to Swedish immigrants Nils Johan Wessell, a Congregationalist minister, and Esther Walquist Wessell,

a nurse. He obtained his B.S. in psychology from Lafayette College in 1934, his master's in psychology

from Brown University in

1935, and his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Rochester in

1938. (He was later awarded honorary degrees from Lafayette College, Lesley College, Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern University, Brown University, and Brandeis University.) He

married Marian Sigler about 1938 and had two children, Nils H. and Roberta. Brought

to Tufts in 1939 by his mentor, Tufts president Leonard Carmichael,

Wessell taught psychology (1939-1947) and was dean of liberal arts (1939-1953)

and vice president (1951-1953). Upon becoming president of the college on

December 9, 1953, he called for Tufts to become a university, leading the

Massachusetts Board of Corporations to change the name from Tufts College to

Tufts University. In addition to the name change, Wessell committed to

developing graduate programs in the colleges of arts, sciences and engineering

in order to become a true research univer-sity. Biology and chemistry

laboratories, an engineering building, new dormitories, and the Wessell Library

were built during his presidency, and the Experimental College and Lincoln

Filene Center for Public Service were opened. He resigned in 1966 due to his

belief in "change in the office of president in a university every 10 or

15 years." Wessell served as a member of the board of the trustees of his

alma mater, Lafayette College, from

1958 to 1964.[1] He was also the president of the Institute

for Educational Development from 1965 to 1968 and president of

the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from

1968 to 1979. In 1976, he was chairman of a New York commission that studied

the possibility of merging the City University of New

York system with the State University of New

York system, ultimately advising against it. In 1979 Wessell

was named "Swedish American of the year".