New Head for Union

Manhattan's Union Theological Seminary will have a new president in July 1945. At the Seminary's 108th commencement last week it was announced that tall, able, energetic Dr. Henry Pitney Van Dusen, professor of systematic theology, will succeed Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin, who has been president for 19 years. Dr. Coffin will have reached 68, Union's retirement age, next June.

During the 41 years Dr. Coffin has taught at the Seminary, he has become internationally known as a Presbyterian liberal and an eloquent preacher. Under his care, Union grew in prestige and endowment (his old Yale friend Edward S. Harkness gave $1,250,000). After years of opposition by conservative Presbyterian groups, Dr. Coffin was last year elected Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A.

Dr. Van Dusen is a Princeton man, descended from a line of Princeton men. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and his class ('19) elected him "best all-around man outside athletics." He studied at Union, got his Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1924, went to Edinburgh for graduate work. He began teaching at Union in 1926. In 1932, after another sojourn in Edin burgh, to get a Ph.D., he became the Seminary's dean, a job he held eight years.

Like Dr. Coffin, Dr. Van Dusen is a leader in the ecumenical movement (the question of church mergers will again be discussed at this week's Presbyterian Assembly). He favored earlier U.S. intervention in the European war, is enthusiastic about foreign missions, believes that vigorous, outspoken church leadership is necessary for a just and durable peace.

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