David C. Knapp

rdf:langString David C. Knapp

rdf:langString David C. Knapp (November 13, 1927 – April 13, 2010) was an American educational administrator. Knapp was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1927, and received his B.A. in political science from Syracuse University in 1947. He entered the University of Chicago; earning his M.A. in 1948. Knapp served in the U.S. Army's Second Armored Division in Ft. Hood, Texas and West Germany from 1950 to 1952 and returned to Chicago to complete his Ph.D. in political science in 1953. Knapp joined the faculty of the University of New Hampshire in 1953 as an assistant professor of government. From 1955 to 1961, he assumed the duties of assistant to the president in addition to that of associate professor. He served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at UNH for 1961–1962. During his tenure at UNH, he took leaves as a Fulbright Scholar in Finland and a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University. In 1963, Knapp became associate director of the Study of American Colleges of Agriculture. The study was financed by the Carnegie Corporation, and was based at the University of Maryland, College Park. While still working on the study, Knapp became director of the Institute of College & University Administrators of the American Council on Education. He left both posts in 1968 to accept an appointment as dean of the New York State College of Home Economics. He proposed changing its name to the New York State College of Human Ecology, and Knapp was the first male to hold the post, a position he held until being appointed Cornell University provost in 1974 under President Dale Corson. Knapp addressed reductions in state funding, campus activism, and the expanding expectations of women students. He organized the merger of the Human Ecology College with a separate Graduate School of Nutrition.