Hamilton Holt - President of Rollins College

President of Rollins College

In 1925, Holt became President of Rollins College and served in that capacity until 1949. His approach to education stresses a cooperative new system called the "Conference Plan" which involved extensive one-on-one interaction between professor and student. It required the college to limit enrollment and recruit professors who would be effective in their new educational mentoring roles. He also advocated a policy whereby the student body could approve or disapprove of faculty hirings.

Because of Holt's commitment to teaching and learning innovation, he organized a national five day Rollins Educational Conference in 1931, led by John Dewey, that brought together leaders in non-traditional higher education. Many ideas from the meetings were integrated into the college's Conference Plan and helped establish the college's nationa reputation as a leading innovatinve teaching institution.

Holt believed in the value of outstanding role models and brought to campus leaders in their fields including politicians such as presidents Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman; inventor Thomas Edison; business leader J.C. Penny; poet Carl Sandburg; writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings; military leader General Omar Bradley; pioneering social worker Jane Addams of Hull House; jurist William O. Douglas, and actors such as James Cagney and Mary Pickford.

The Rollins College evening program is named in his Honor as is a street in the city of Winter Park.