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Harry K. Newburn was born in Cuba, Illinois on January 1, 1906. He became the eighth UO president in 1945 and served until 1953. As President, he faced a rapidly growing enrollment on an under-staffed and under-built campus. Student housing was inadequate to meet the 81 percent enrollment increase from 1945 to 1946, and long-time faculty members were reaching retirement age. Convincing the legislature to allow salary increases, he enabled the UO to compete for and attract more highly qualified professors.

The classroom, office, and housing shortages were met with a variety of responses, some temporary, such as Quonset huts used as classrooms, and others more permanent, such as the building of Emerald Hall and the establishment of single and married students housing. Also during his presidency, the Erb Memorial Union, Carson Hall, the University Theater wing at Villard Hall and Allen Hall, were built. President Newburn also increased library acquisitions and strengthened the curriculum and faculty. Under Newburn, the general educational requirements became a part of academic life for students majoring in any of the professional areas of study, and the number of graduate degrees earned also increased dramatically.

Orlando John Hollis, began at the University of Oregon as a Law student, then a Law Professor, and then Dean of the Law School from 1941-1967.

He was born in Eugene in 1904 and came to the University of Oregon as a freshman in 1922. He graduated from the law school in 1928, and became a full professor in 1931. Hollis served as acting dean from 1941 to 1944. In 1945, with Dean Wayne Morse’s election to the United States Senate, Hollis became dean in his own right. He served as acting president of the university in 1944-45. Hollis retired in 1974.