August 17, 2016

When Kenneth G. Matheson was named Drexel’s president in 1921, the institution faced financial difficulties, decreasing enrollments, outdated facilities and a generally dissatisfied community. His legacy includes reorganizing the administrative and faculty structure of the institute; increasing student organizations and outreach; expanding the co-op program; tripling the enrollment of the day school in a decade; wiping out Drexel’s current deficit; increasing the institute’s endowment to $1 million and expanding the size and quality campus. He is granted a leave of absence in May 1931 for his ill health, but his devotion to Drexel is so great that he postpone the leave and dies in office of a heart attack on Nov. 29, 1931. Matheson Hall, which was on campus from 1965 until 2011, was named after him.