{{short description|American mathematician}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Boyd Crumrine Patterson | image = Boyd Crumrine Patterson 1902.jpg | caption = | order = 9th | title = | term_start = March 24, 1950 | term_end = June 30, 1970 | predecessor = James Herbert Case, Jr. | successor = Howard J. Burnett | birth_date = April 23, 1902 | birth_place = McKeesport, Pennsylvania | death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|1988|07|12|1902|04|23}} | death_place = Clinton, New York | alma_mater = Washington & Jefferson College | profession = Professor | spouse = Mary Eleanor Dennison | children = | website = | footnotes = | office = President of Washington & Jefferson College }} '''Boyd Crumrine Patterson''' was an American mathematician and the ninth president of Washington & Jefferson College.<ref name=library>{{cite web | title = Boyd Crumrine Patterson (1950-1970) | work = U. Grant Miller Library Digital Archives | publisher = Washington & Jefferson College | date = September 4, 2003 | url = http://washjeff.cdmhost.com/u?/p4019coll8,26 }}</ref>
== Life and career == Patterson was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, on April 23, 1902, and graduated from Washington and Jefferson College in 1923, completing his studies in three years.<ref name=library /> He was a member of the well-known Crumrine family of Washington County and a third-generation W&J graduate.<ref name=library /> His father, John P. Patterson, was a member of W&J's class of 1885; his grandfather, Boyd Crumrine, a noted local historian, was in Jefferson College's class of 1860.<ref name=library /> He was also a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.<ref>{{cite news|title=Phi Psi Leaders in Historic Room|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9FZdAAAAIBAJ&dq=phi-kappa-psi%20washington%20%26%20jefferson%20college&pg=2031%2C5573527|access-date=October 7, 2011|newspaper=The Washington Reporter|date=June 27, 1952}}</ref>
For graduate study, Boyd went to Johns Hopkins University where he studied inversive geometry with Frank Morley. In 1926, he wrote a dissertation "Differential Invariants of Inversive Geometry" for his doctoral degree.
Patterson returned to Washington & Jefferson College as a member of the faculty from 1926 to 1927 before taking a mathematics professorship at Hamilton College. Continuing to collaborate with Morley, they co-wrote a paper on algebraic inversive invariants in 1930. In 1943, Patterson became the chair of the mathematics department at Hamilton.<ref name=library />
In 1950, he returned to W&J to assume its presidency.<ref name=library /> In that position, he oversaw curriculum revisions, updated admissions standards, and generally enhanced Washington and Jefferson's reputation.<ref name=library /> All told, 17 buildings were constructed during Patterson's tenure, including the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity House, the Wilbur F. Henry Memorial Physical Education Center, ten Greek housing units in the center of campus, the U. Grant Miller Library, the Student Center, the Commons, and two new dormitories.<ref name=library /> The athletic fields also were improved. In 1952, the college's two war surplus barracks, Washington Hall and Jefferson Hall, were dismantled.<ref name=library /> During his presidency, the college's endowment expanded from $2.3 million to nearly $11 million.<ref name=obit />
On December 12, 1969, the Board of Trustees authorized the admission of women as undergraduate students, to be effective in September 1970.<ref name=library /> Dr. Patterson retired on June 30, 1970.<ref name=library /> He died of a stroke on July 12, 1988, in his home in Clinton, New York.<ref name=obit>{{cite news | title = Boyd C. Patterson, college President, 86 | work = The New York Times | date = July 16, 1988 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/16/obituaries/boyd-c-patterson-college-president-86.html }}</ref>
thumb|Ex Libris of Boyd Crumrine Patterson
==Works== * 1929: "On complex values of a real parameter", ''American Mathematical Monthly'' '''36'''(7):376–9. * 1930; "On algebraic inversive invariants", American Journal of Mathematics '''52'''(2):413–24 (with Frank Morley) * 1933: "The origins of the geometric principle of inversion", ''Isis'' '''19'''(1):154–80. * 1935: "The components of velocity and acceleration", ''American Mathematical Monthly'' '''42'''(9): 554–7. * 1937: ''Projective Geometry'', John Wiley & Sons. Reviews:<ref>R.A. Johnson, ''American Mathematical Monthly'' '''45'''(5): 313,4<br />- Patrick du Val, ''Mathematical Gazette'' '''21''': 445, #247<br />- H.A. Robinson, ''National Mathematics Magazine'' '''12'''(5): 258</ref> * 1939: "The artificial arithmetik in decimals of Robert Jager 1651", ''Isis'' 31(1):25–31. * 1941: "The Inversive Plane", ''American Mathematical Monthly'' ''48'': 589–99, {{doi|10.2307/2303867}} {{MR|id=0006034}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{MathGenealogy |id=8196}} * {{cite news | title = Boyd C. Patterson, college President, 86 | work = The New York Times | date = 1988-07-16 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/16/obituaries/boyd-c-patterson-college-president-86.html }}
{{s-start}} {{s-aca}} {{succession box | before = James Herbert Case, Jr. | title = President of Washington and Jefferson College | years = 1950–1970 | after = Howard J. Burnett }} {{s-end}} {{Washington & Jefferson College presidents}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Patterson, Boyd Crumrine}} Category:1902 births Category:1988 deaths Category:20th-century American mathematicians Category:American geometers Category:People from McKeesport, Pennsylvania Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni Category:Hamilton College (New York) faculty Category:Washington & Jefferson College alumni Category:Presidents of Washington & Jefferson College Category:Mathematicians from New York (state) Category:20th-century American academics