Ensign, Forest C.
Dates
- Existence: 1867-1961
Biography
Forest Chester Ensign was born March 22, 1867, on a farm in Defiance County, Ohio. Ensign attended a normal college and business college in Fayette, Ohio, from 1885 to 1887. He attended the State Teachers College in Cedar Falls, Iowa, a member of the class of 1895, where he met his future wife, Lucy Maria Smith. They were married December 29, 1896. Both Forest and Lucy attended the State University of Iowa, Forest from 1895 to 1897. After receiving his Bachelor of Philosophy degree in June 1897, Ensign served as principal of the Iowa City High School, followed by principal of the Council Bluffs High School, 1900 to 1905. In 1905 he returned to Iowa and served for one year as acting professor in the SUI Department of Education and as inspector of Iowa high schools, an appointment he held through 1911. He was named professor of history and philosophy of education in 1906. Ensign served as University Registrar and Dean of Men from 1911 to 1915. As registrar, Ensign established the beginnings of a campus mail system, saving more than $200 in postal mailings. In addition, in January 1912 he instituted two changes to the undergraduate registration process in order to ease the long wait in lines. First, he assigned advisors to undergraduates, who provided the requisite schedule approvals prior to registration. Second, he limited the first three days of the registration period to those in the professional schools, followed by one week of registration designated for College of Liberal Arts students. Ensign served twice as acting Dean of the College of Education, during the fall semester 1938 and again in the spring semester of 1943, when Dean Paul C. Packer was called to serve in the U. S. Army. Ensign worked with other faculty during the early 1920s to establish the School of Religion in 1927. He served as chair of the Iowa Memorial Union Planning Committee, and continued to serve as secretary until 1954. Ensign also served as chair of the Homecoming Committee for a number of years. He worked to bring the Epsilon Chapter of the Phi Delta Kappa Education Honor Society and the Theta Chapter of the Pi Lambda Theta International Honor Society to SUI. He was a founder of the faculty Triangle Club. During six months in 1927, Ensign was on leave of absence to the University of Bristol, where he taught one undergraduate course and one graduate course in the philosophy of education. This was the first SUI faculty exchange with a foreign institution. Ensign's research focused on the history of education, as well as child labor and the care of the insane. Ensign retired in 1950. In recognition of his service to the University, a wing of the Hillcrest Dormitory was named for him in 1959. Forest and Lucy Ensign were members of the Presbyterian Church. The couple had two children, Dwight (1899) and Elizabeth (1902). Forest Ensign died April 11, 1961.