Dr. Leonard
W. Rice was born in 1914 in
the small Utah town of Garland,
and was raised in the even
smaller town of Clifton, Idaho.
Dr. Rice’s father worked
in the coal mines of northeastern
Utah and southwestern Wyoming
before buying a farm in rural
southeastern Idaho. By the
age of ten, Dr. Rice was working
as a farm laborer, but he
understood his mind was his
best chance to escape the
harsh realities of life on
the farm or in the mines.
Dr. Rice graduated high
school as class valedictorian,
and entered Brigham Young
University (BYU) in Provo,
Utah. He graduated as his
class valedictorian in 1941
with a Bachelors degree in
English and a minor in Speech.
Dr. Rice was accepted into
the graduate program at the
University of Washington (UW),
and completed the requirements
for a Masters degree before
serving in World War Two.
Dr. Rice was assigned as a
cryptographer to General Douglas
MacArthur’s headquarters
in the South Pacific during
the war. As a cryptographer,
Dr. Rice was responsible for
encoding and decoding the
final surrender terms between
Japan and the United States
that ended hostilities in
the Pacific.
After the war, Dr. Rice and
his wife Ruth, who he met
as a student at BYU, returned
to Washington and he completed
a doctorate at UW in 1950.
Dr. Rice accepted an offer
to teach at BYU after graduation,
and soon was the chair of
the English department and,
in 1957, the dean of the College
of Humanities and Social Sciences
at BYU. Dr. Rice left BYU
in 1960 to teach at Rhode
Island College before accepting
the position of president
of the Oregon College of Education
in 1962.
Dr. Rice served as OCE President
from 1962 until his retirement
in 1977, making him the longest-serving
president in the history of
the school. Dr. Rice oversaw
construction of many new campus
buildings and a large increase
in enrollment. Within a month
of Rice’s arrival, the
Columbus Day Storm destroyed
the South Wing of Campbell
Hall. The damage to Campbell
Hall eliminated almost half
of the school’s classroom
space and the only auditorium
on campus. The dedication
of Humanities and Social Science,
replacing the South Wing of
Campbell Hall, was the first
of many physical improvements
to campus under Rice’s
leadership. The Health Center
(1963), Education Building,
(1966), Natural Sciences Building
(1970), New Physical Education
and Valsetz Dining Hall (1971),
a remodel of the Student Center,
now known as the Werner University
Center, in 1972, and the construction
of a new auditorium facility,
named in honor of Dr. rice,
in 1976 highlight the growth
of the campus during Dr. Rice’s
presidency.
Dr. Rice retired from OCE
in 1977, declining a distinguished
professorship of humanities
at the school, and relocating
to Salem, Oregon. Dr. Leonard
W. Rice, the thirteenth president
of the campus in Monmouth,
passed away in 1986 following
a battle with brain cancer.
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