Dr. Herman L. Donovan

(Inducted in 2004)

Herman Lee Donovan, the first student enrolled at Western Kentucky State Normal School, went onto a distinguished education career that included being president of Eastern Kentucky State Normal School (now EKU) and the University of Kentucky.

Donovan was born on March 17, 1887, in Mason County where he graduated from Minerva High School in 1905.

He graduated from Western in 1908, earned his bachelor’s degree from State University (now UK) in 1914, master’s from Columbia Teachers College (now Columbia University) in 1920 and his doctorate from George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville in 1925.

In 1921, Donovan took a professorial position at Eastern Kentucky State Normal School and Teachers College and became president of the Richmond school in 1928.

Although severely hampered by the Great Depression, Donovan brought a spirit of innovation and activism to the campus. Under his direction, Eastern achieved regional accreditation for the first time, abolished the normal school, established academic ranks, created a division of graduate study, reorganized most academic departments, expanded programs and constructed several new buildings.

In 1941, Donovan left Eastern to become the fourth president at UK, where he served until his retirement in 1956.

Donovan guided UK through the crises of racial integration and of World War II and its aftermath. A champion of academic freedom, he fought to extend faculty rights, to improve salaries for his professors and to enhance the status and image of the school.

Donovan also was a teacher in Mason County schools, a principal in Paducah, superintendent in Wickliffe, assistant superintendent of Louisville public schools, superintendent in Catlettsburg, dean of the faculty at Eastern (1921-1923), and professor of education at George Peabody College (1924-1928). He also served as president of the American Association of Teachers Colleges (1934-1935) and the Southern Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges (1938-1939).

He and his wife, the former Nell James Stuart of Pembroke, had no children. He died on Nov. 21, 1964, in Lexington.