William Arthur Ganfield
Ganfield c. 1921
6th President of Carroll College
In office 1921 – July 1, 1939
Preceded by	Herbert Pierpont Houghton
Succeeded by	Gerrit T. Vander Lugt
11th President of Centre College
In office June 1, 1915 – 1921
Preceded by	Frederick W. Hinitt
Succeeded by	R. Ames Montgomery
Personal details
Born	(1873-09-03)September 3, 1873 Cascade, Iowa
Died	October 18, 1940(1940-10-18) (aged 67) Chicago, Illinois
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Clara Boardman ​ (m. 1901)​
Education	St. Mary's Seminary Cornell College McCormick Theological Seminary University of Chicago

William Arthur Ganfield (September 3, 1873 – October 18, 1940) was an American pastor, educator, and academic administrator who was president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, from 1915 to 1921 and later president of Carroll College (now called Carroll University) in Waukesha, Wisconsin, from 1921 until his retirement in 1939.

William Arthur Ganfield was born on September 3, 1873, in Cascade, Iowa.^[1][2] He graduated from St. Mary's Seminary in Epworth, Iowa, in 1894.^[3] He attended Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1898 and a Master of Arts in 1901.^[1] Afterwards, he attended McCormick Theological Seminary^[1] and completed graduate work at the University of Chicago.^[4]

Ganfield was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Cedar Rapids in 1900 and ordained by the Presbytery of Winnebago in 1901.^[2] He began his ministerial career as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on May 5, 1901.^[5] He spent four years in Green Bay before resigning on July 31, 1904, to become a professor of history and political science at Carroll College—now Carroll University—in Waukesha, Wisconsin. This move came at a time when Carroll was transitioning from a two-year junior college to a four-year college.^[6] Ganfield departed Green Bay for Waukesha on August 31, 1904.^[7]

In late 1911, Ganfield became interim pastor of the Congregational Church in Menomonie, Wisconsin, following the resignation of that church's pastor. The church offered him the pastorate in full in February 1912; he declined, but agreed to remain on in an interim capacity until at least June of that year.^[8] He ultimately remained as pastor until 1914.^[9] During part of his time in Waukesha, Ganfield was fire and police commissioner, a position he resigned upon leaving for Central.^[a]

Ganfield was unanimously elected president of Central University of Kentucky in Danville, Kentucky, on May 5, 1915.^[11][12] He accepted the position at the following month's board meeting, and his presidency was made effective June 1, 1915.^[13][14] He inherited a college with declining enrollment, partially as a result of decisions made by his predecessor, Frederick W. Hinitt, to sever formal ties with the Presbyterian Church for the first time.^[15] Those changes were made in order to gain Central admittance into the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which required member schools be "non-sectarian", in 1908.^[16] Many of Ganfield's major decisions worked to reverse this in an effort to get the school's enrollment and endowment back up, though he did conduct a fundraiser which was planned for completion in 1919, in time for the college's centennial, prior to such a reversal. The fundraiser was successful, though not until after the centennial; by 1922, the total amount raised had reached $400,000 (equivalent to $7,280,000 in 2023) and had raised the school's endowment past $1 million for the first time.^[4]

Gradually, the school's ties to the church were reinstated; it received funding for teaching of the Bible from the board of education of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA; the "Northern Presbyterian Church") in 1919 before fully reinstating the church connection in 1921. This change was not without opposition, especially from some of the younger members of the school's board of trustees, but the change went further in specifying that future presidents of the school would be required to be Presbyterian.^[17][b] Almost immediately, enrollment rebounded; from a low of 80 students in 1915,^[15] the school hit 287 in 1921, the first year after church ties were reinstated.^[20] Another major change took place when the school reverted to the "Centre College" name on December 17, 1918.^[21] It had used the name "Central University of Kentucky" since its merger with Central University, in Richmond, Kentucky, in 1901.^[22]

Athletics, particularly football, were emphasized during Ganfield's time at Centre. The "Praying Colonels" football team was experiencing national prominence. Ganfield recruited Charley Moran to take over as head coach starting in 1917, and the hiring of Texas high school football coach Robert L. Myers as athletic director meant that his star players Bo McMillin, Red Weaver, and Red Roberts joined him in Danville as members of the football team.^[23] The team saw success almost immediately; the 1917 squad lost only one game, the 1918 team went undefeated in a flu-shortened season, and the 1919 team finished undefeated—allowing no more than seven points in any game—and were retroactively recognized as national champions by the Sagarin ratings.^[24][25][26] The team's success and fame peaked after their October 29, 1921, victory over Harvard, generally viewed as one of the largest upsets in college football history.^[27] This athletic success came at the price of declining academic standards; Centre was dropped from the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of Southern States in 1920 and were not restored until 1923.^[28]

Ganfield took the presidency of Carroll College in 1921.^[29] He had been Carroll's first choice to replace Wilbur Oscar Carrier when he resigned the presidency in 1917, but Ganfield declined because he was less than two years into his term at Central.^[30]

Shortly after returning to Carroll, Ganfield entered the Republican primary for Wisconsin's Class 1 U.S. Senate seat being contested in the 1922 elections.^[29] He was defeated by incumbent senator Robert M. La Follette and earned just 27.8% of the vote to La Follette's 72.2%;^[31] La Follette went on to win the general election in a landslide over the Democratic candidate Jessie Jack Hooper.^[32] That same year, he was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of Wisconsin.^[9]

A new gymnasium was constructed at Carroll starting in 1923, though a collapse of the steel framework in November of that year delayed its completion.^[33] It was dedicated on June 12, 1924.^[34]

Ganfield continued his support of football as college president at Carroll. He boasted that within four years' time the school would be beating the Wisconsin Badgers in football.^[35] In his first year as college president, the team fell far short of that mark with one win for the season and was outscored by 119 to 14, leaving fans and the school administration sorely disappointed under head coach C.C. Boone. By 1925, the school had a perfect 8–0 season under head coach Norris Armstrong. As of 2008, the school has never played the "Badgers" in football.^[36]

Ganfield retired on July 1, 1939.^[9]

Ganfield married Clara Boardman on August 27, 1901,^[37] and the couple had five children.^[38] He died on October 18, 1940,^[39] at Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago.^[9]

During his career, Ganfield was a member of the board of trustees of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, the YMCA of Kentucky executive committee, the Kentucky Sunday School Association state board, and the International Sunday School Association.^[9] Ganfield's name is given to one part of Cooper Ganfield Hall, a dormitory building at Centre,^[40] and Ganfield Gymnasium, a recreation center at Carroll.^[41][42] Carroll's first-year William A. Ganfield Fellow Scholarship is also named for him.^[38]

• Centre College Board of Trustees Minutes (1901–1916). Vol. 5. Danville, Kentucky: Centre College. 1918.
• Centre College Board of Trustees Minutes (1918) (PDF). Vol. 6. Danville, Kentucky: Centre College. 1918. p. 5.
• Doyle, Andrew (2017). "Defeated by the Accreditors: The Rise and Fall of Big-Time Football at Centre College, 1915–1926". Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 115 (4): 471–524. doi:10.1353/khs.2017.0077. JSTOR 44981258. OCLC 8151318908. S2CID 159973554.
• Hubbard, Joseph Welton (1907). The Presbyterian Church in Iowa, 1837–1900 (PDF). Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Jones & Wells.
• Langill, Ellen (1980). Carroll College: The First Century, 1846–1946. Waukesha, Wisconsin: Carroll College. ISBN 0-916120-06-6. OCLC 6051347.
• Weston, William J. (2019). Centre College: a Bicentennial History. Danville, Kentucky: Centre College. ISBN 978-1-6943-5863-9. OCLC 1142930784.
• Wisconsin Blue Book - Election Statistics (PDF). 1922. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 17, 2015.