Records of the President of the University of Nevada, Reno, Charles J. Armstrong

Charles Johnstone Armstrong, 10th president of the University of Nevada, was born on June 22, 1911, in Victoria, British Columbia. He attended Victoria College and graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1932. He received his doctoral degree in classical philology from Harvard University in 1936. Armstrong taught at Rollins, Dartmouth, and Brown Universities as well as serving as an administrator at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington before becoming the president of Pacific of the Pacific in Forest Grove, Oregon. He served in that position from 1953-1958 when he was hired as president by the University of Nevada in 1958.

Armstrong brought to his presidency a background in the classics, and his speeches frequently drew from the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. He described the desirable atmosphere for the university as being "one of freedom and the responsibility inherent in freedom, an atmosphere in which all the university community's students, faculty, staff, and administration may work toward our common goals, in mutual confidence and respect.

Over his tenure, from 1958-1967, Armstrong worked closely with faculty to implement a faculty reorganization plan, established a faculty council, worked to stimulate research, train doctoral students, created the Desert Research Institute, added a new library building, greatly increased the number of library volumes, supported the establishment of the University of Nevada Press, and created a systematic sabbatical leave program. He resigned from the University of Nevada to become the president of the Dayton-Miami Valley Consortium, a group of 11 colleges and universities in Ohio. In 1973, Armstrong retired and settled in San Diego, California.

Armstrong died in San Diego on December 29, 1994.

[Information from "Charles J. Armstrong, former university president, dead at 83" in Reno Gazette Journal, January 7, 1995]