Frank Johnson Goodnow

He was born in Brooklyn, New York.

After private schooling he graduated from Amherst College (AB) in 1879 and from Columbia Law School (LLB) in 1882. At Columbia, in addition to such subjects essential for admission to the Bar, he took courses in public law and jurisprudence offered in the recently organized School of Political Science. Late in 1882 he was offered a position in the School of Political Science on the condition that he prepare himself with a year of study abroad. He studied at the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques in Paris and at the University of Berlin.

Segregation at Johns Hopkins University

In November 1925, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote to Goodnow, then president of Johns Hopkins University, requesting confirmation of a report that Black students had been ejected from an extension course offered by the university. One day later, Goodnow replied to Du Bois, stating that he intended to enforce "the educational policy of the State [of Maryland]... [which] is the segregation of all races in all the schools of the State." Du Bois replied four days later, urging Goodnow not to "surrender to provincialism and race discrimination.". There is no record of a response from Goodnow.

Goodnow took up his teaching in October 1884 at Columbia, giving some instruction in History as well as in United States Administrative Law.

Made Adjunct Professor in 1887, Goodnow became Professor of Administrative Law in 1891, and in 1903 Eaton Professor of Administrative Law and Municipal Science. He became the first president of the American Political Science Association in 1903. Governor Theodore Roosevelt made him a member of the commission to draft a new charter for Greater New York, and President Taft chose him as a member of his Commission on Economy and Efficiency.

In 1914 he became the third president of Johns Hopkins University. At Hopkins, he is best remembered for his attempt to eliminate the bachelor's degree by cutting the first two years of undergraduate work. Called the Goodnow Plan or New Plan, students would have entered Hopkins after two years of study in other universities and would have worked toward an advanced degree, bypassing the bachelor's degree. (similar to the role of Senior Colleges) Although briefly implemented, the plan failed, largely because of the difficulty of persuading enough students to transfer to Hopkins halfway through their college education. The plan was attempted again in substantially the same form, in the early 1950s, under President Detlev W. Bronk, meeting with the same lack of success. Known as a good financial manager, Goodnow greatly increased the university's income during his fifteen-year presidency.

Goodnow resigned the Johns Hopkins University presidency in 1929 and was succeeded by Joseph Sweetman Ames, but thereafter frequently gave graduate lectures in his special subjects. He was for some time a regent of the University of Maryland and a member of the Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore.

He married Elizabeth Lyall (1861–1942) in 1886 and had 3 children: Isabel C. (Mrs. E. Kendall Gillett), David F. and Lois R. (Mrs. John V. A. MacMurray).