Hall of Fame Member Biographies

Adolph Linscheid

Adolph Linscheid was the third president of East Central University, serving from 1920 to 1949. He was born in Newhof, in the province of Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on December 24, 1879, to South German Mennonite parents. The Linscheid family emigrated to the United States two years later and settled in Minnesota. He earned a Bachelor of Pedagogy from Springfield Normal School in Missouri in 1900, a Bachelor of Science from Freemont College in Nebraska in 1911, and a Master of Arts from the University of Oklahoma in 1920. He earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1928. Linscheid began his teaching career at the age of 17 in a one-room schoolhouse in Minnesota. In 1903, he became principal of the school in the small town of Parkland, Oklahoma, and then superintendent of schools at Prague in 1905, at Okemah in 1909, and at Bristow in 1910. In 1911, he accepted a position at Southeastern State Normal School. 

Dr. Linscheid led East Central University through the turbulent 1920s and 1930s, when many of Oklahoma’s college and university presidents were replaced regularly as gubernatorial regimes changed. A polished speaker who engaged in numerous speaking engagements yearly in cities and towns across the state, Linscheid created a reservoir of popular support among politicians, civic leaders, and religious communities. He played a leading role in promoting the interests of higher education at the state level by serving on several state-wide committees and participating in the establishment of both the Board of Regents of Oklahoma Colleges and the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. At East Central University, he pursued progressive plans for the institution’s future that led to the development of extension classes, the expansion of the mission from just teacher preparation to liberal arts baccalaureate degrees, and the promotion of a wide range of intercollegiate sports. His presidency witnessed the dramatic expansion of student enrollment and faculty through the World War II era, and the construction of new buildings on the core campus in Ada, including a new library that was dedicated to his honor in 1949.

Despite his German heritage, Linscheid was attuned to his times and place, leading his institution through World War II with the respect of multiple constituencies and with unwavering patriotism. He died on December 28, 1949.