The William K. Selden Manuscript Collection

William K. Selden was born on November 11, 1911, in Oil City, PA. Following his early education in the Oil City public schools, Selden attended and graduated from the Gilman School in Baltimore, MD. He graduated from Princeton University in 1934. He served in the administrations of Princeton, Brown and Northwestern Universities before assuming the presidency of Illinois College. He was for ten years the executive director of the National Commission on Accrediting in Washington and then vice president of the American Assembly at Columbia University. In the mid-1960s, Selden resigned from the American Assembly and took a series of appointments to national and regional boards and commissions concerned with education for the professions and military services. The U.S. Department of State and the Danforth Foundation also appointed him as an educational consultant in India. From the 1980s onward, Selden undertook the writing of a series of monographs and histories of various institutions in Princeton. These included the Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton Day School, the Nassau Club, Drumthwacket and the Princeton Public Library. Selden died on September 21, 2009 at Pennswood Village in Newtown, PA.