The following article appeared in the Centennial Newsletter on May 29th, 2025.
Presidential Ponderings – Centennial Newsletter
Dr. Francis ‘Fran’ Henry Horn, tenth president of Albertus Magnus College, had excellent credentials and extensive experience in higher education both in the United States and overseas. He was the first president of the college who was not a Dominican Sister, not a woman, and not a Catholic.
Dr. Horn was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1908 and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1930. He earned a masters from the University of Virginia in 1934. He earned a masters and a doctorate from Yale University in 1942 and 1949 respectively. He began his career as an English and History professor at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. During World War II, he spent four years in the army where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and worked as the assistant dean of the Army University in Biarritz, France. His relationship with Albertus Magnus College began in 1968 when he was one of four laypeople who joined the Albertus Magnus College Board of Trustees. Up to that time, the Board of Trustees was governed exclusively by members in the Dominican community and the Catholic dioceses.
As President of Albertus, from 1971 to 1975, Dr. Horn cultivated and established close relationships between the college, the New Haven community, and the larger global community. He was a man who was influential in shaping the course of higher education both domestically and internationally. He was awarded honorary degrees from universities too numerous to mention here from all around the globe. Dr. Horn was a prolific writer on higher education and many of his articles and public speeches are housed at the archives in Rosary Hall.
My favorite story about Dr. Horn’s presidency at Albertus Magnus College happened on January 5, 1973 when Dr. Horn welcomed King Palden Thondup Namgyal and Queen Hope Cooke Namgyal of Sikkim (annexed to India May 16,1975) to campus and bestowed honorary Doctorate of Laws to the royal couple. Queen Hope Cooke Namgyal was American born, grew up in Maine and Manhattan, and attended Sarah Lawrence College. An avid traveler, Cooke met her future husband while visiting the Himalayan Mountains and married the soon to be King of Sikkim on March 20, 1963. Dr. Horn visited Sikkim to advise on the planning for a new university at the request of the Queen. The royal couple, and four of their five children, came to Albertus while they were visiting the United States incognito. They requested that the ceremony be kept confidential until they had left the country.
Of all the accomplishments and accolades earned by Dr. Horn, I admire the international work he did, his appreciation for diversity, and his great belief in the value of a quality education for all. Dr. Horn said this as he conferred the degrees upon the couple, “…West and East can indeed meet, and that according to the old Chinese ideal, all men can be brothers.” Dr. Horn spoke to the Queen, saying, “In your meteoric and romantic journey from college girl of the West to queen of the East, you have maintained your individual identity, preserved your personal integrity, yet adapted admirably to your new oriental environment and commitments.”
I was so blessed to have witnessed the 102nd graduation ceremony at Albertus Magnus College on Sunday, May 18, 2025. I watched the joy of many and the trepidation on the faces of a few. The world is a big place full of possibilities where a little girl from America can grow up and co-govern a small country in the Far East. A Protestant man from Ohio can open the doors of New England’s first residential, Catholic, liberal arts college for women, to a global audience. With all of these possibilities, I wonder what our new graduates will accomplish? I cannot help but wonder what kind of stories our newest alumni will have to tell us in ten, twenty or thirty years. Will they have maintained their individual identities? Will they have preserved their personal integrity? Will they be able to adapt to whatever life throws at them? I believe Albertus has prepared them to do that, and more.
Submitted by Sr. Paula Danforth