Charles Edwin
Friley
Born in Louisiana to William
Christopher and Ellen Douglas Friley, Charles E. Friley attended Sam Houston
Teachers College (1905) and Baylor University (1905-1907) and received his B.S.
(1912) from Texas A & M University and an M.S. (1923) from Columbia University.
Dr. Friley was awarded several honorary degrees throughout his career and
received an honorary doctorate (1958) from Iowa State University.
After three years of teaching in the public schools in Louisiana and Texas, Dr.
Friley served as Registrar (1912-1924) at Texas A & M and as Dean of the School
of Arts and Science (1924-1932). In 1932, Dr. Friley was appointed Dean of the
Division of Science at Iowa State College (University) and was named
Vice-President of the College in 1935. He succeeded Dr. Raymond M. Hughes as
president of Iowa State in 1936 after serving as interim for five months. He
retired in 1953.
His 17-year term was the longest of Iowa State's first 11 presidents, and
spanned higher education's most turbulent era, from the closing phase of the
Depression through World War II and into the post-war "educational revolution."
It was an administration characterized by emergency efforts, the most notable
among them Iowa State's participation in the Manhattan (atomic research)
project. Friley was directly responsible for Iowa State's establishment of the
nation's first educationally-owned and operated television station.
He was a Mason and a Fellow of the Iowa Academy of Science and was a member of
numerous organizations and societies, including the National Council of
Presbyterian Men, Iowa State Fair Board, Iowa Geological Survey, Sigma Alpha
Epsilon, Phi Kappa Phi, and Phi Mu Alpha.
He was married three times. In 1913, he married his first wife, Nina Lynn Wood,
who died in 1918. They had two sons Charles Edwin, Jr. and William Alva. Dr.
Friley married his second wife, Vera Foreman in 1921, and she died in 1947. They
had one daughter, Frances Foreman (Kuyper). In 1951 he married Magdalen Ranney.
Charles E. Friley passed away in 1958.
