Dave Frohnmayer
President Emeritus, University of Oregon
Dave Frohnmayer was appointed President of the University of Oregon, the state’s Association of American Universities flagship institution, on July 1, 1994. He retired from the post on June 30, 2009. He died March 10, 2015 at age 74.
He formerly served as dean of the University of Oregon School of Law, as Oregon’s Attorney General, as a member of the Oregon House of Representatives, and as a law professor and legal counsel to the president of the University of Oregon. As attorney general, he argued and won six of seven cases before the United States Supreme Court, the most cases and best record of any contemporary state attorney general.
During his service as president, the university increased its enrollment from 16,700 to a record 21,000 students and finished two fund-raising campaigns raising more than $1.1 billion. The university became a founding member of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities; hosted the annual meeting of the Association of American Universities; and completed or began construction projects totaling more than $650 million. Among these projects were four student housing facilities; two child care facilities; the William W. Knight Law Center; the Student Recreation Center; the national Zebrafish Stock Center; the Matthew Knight Arena; the Many Nations Longhouse; and renovations and additions to the Knight Library, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, the Miller Theatre Complex; Autzen Stadium, the Lillis Business Complex, the College of Education, the School of Journalism and Communication, the School of Music, and seven science facilities.
The University also added a host of new centers and institutes, more than doubled the federal grants awarded annually, and added nineteen new degree programs, including bachelor’s degrees in biochemistry and ethnic studies and a master of fine arts degree in dance.
Frohnmayer was the first native Oregonian to be president of any large research university in the state. He and his wife Lynn founded the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund, Inc. He was one of the founding directors of the National Marrow Donor Program, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a national prize-winning author on the United States Constitution, a magna cum laude graduate from Harvard College and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. Frohnmayer was a member of the faculty of the UO School of Law and of the Clark Honors College. He also taught a highly popular freshman seminar, “Theories of Leadership.”
Download Dave Frohnmayer's Resume (180k pdf)
