Engraved portrait by John Sartain

Ormond Beatty (1815–1890) was an American educator and academic administrator who was the seventh president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. An 1835 graduate of Centre, Beatty became a professor soon after, following a year of studies at Yale University. He taught chemistry, natural philosophy, mathematics, metaphysics, biblical history, and church history over the course of his career. He was president pro tempore following the resignation of William L. Breckinridge in 1868 and was unanimously elected president by the board of trustees in 1870. He was Centre's first president who was not a Christian minister, and he led the school until his resignation in 1888. He taught for two additional years at the request of the board before his death. In religious affairs, he served as a ruling elder in the First and Second Presbyterian Churches in Danville, as a commissioner to three Presbyterian Church General Assemblies, and as a trustee of the Danville Theological Seminary. (Full article...)