In Name & Fact

Meeting on Morningside Heights this week, the trustees of Columbia University made short work of picking a successor to General Dwight D. Eisenhower. To be 14th president of Columbia they named Dr. Grayson L. Kirk, 49, the political scientist who has filled the job in all but name ever since Eisenhower became NATO's Supreme Commander 24 months ago.

Seldom has a large university had so little trouble finding a president with so much executive experience. Even before he was graduated from Miami University in 1924, Kirk put in a year as principal of an Ohio high school. He went to Columbia in 1940 as an associate professor of government, soon proved to be an able administrator as well as a fine teacher. By 1943 he was a full professor; in 1948 he was director of the university's European Institute, in 1949 was appointed provost and later vice president. He also found time to serve on the U.S. delegation at Dumbarton Oaks and to help set up the U.N. Security Council in San Francisco. A trim, vigorous scholar, Dr. Kirk has already demonstrated his ability to manage the complicated affairs of the university. There will be little new to him about his new job except the title, the salary (a reported $30,000 a year) and use of the stately old president's mansion that was occupied so long (1912-47) by the late Nicholas Murray Butler and so briefly by Dwight Eisenhower.

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