Carl Williams Borgmann (June 3, 1905 – November 29, 1998) was an American chemical engineer, research scientist, academic administrator at the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Nebraska, sixteenth president of the University of Vermont (UVM), and director of science and engineering for the Ford Foundation. During the research phase of his career, Borgmann studied both metal corrosion and fructose extraction. He took an interest in astronomy and was friends with astronomers Joe Pawsey and Walt Roberts.
As president of UVM, Borgmann brought a Midwestern approach to the democratization of education, running a successful campaign that raised state funds and cut the cost of tuition almost in half for resident students, who in the early 1950s were paying the highest in-state tuition in the country. McCarthyism was at its height in the United States at the time, and the Novikoff Affair became a major controversy at UVM regarding academic freedom during his presidency.
Borgmann was recruited by the Ford Foundation during the Sputnik crisis and left UVM to serve as its director, helping to advance science and technology for Western nations by disbursing funds in the areas of engineering, atmospheric science, and space science. He was an early proponent of anthropogenic climate change and wrote several speeches and articles focusing on the importance of nature conservation towards the end of his career.
Early life and education Borgmann was born on June 3, 1905, in Mount Washington, Missouri, but was raised in Evergreen, Colorado. He was a student at Denver West High School and later did his undergraduate work at the University of Colorado Boulder (BS, 1927; MS, 1931)."Death Notices and Funerals Held". The Burlington Free Press. December 8, 1998. p. 16. After receiving his Bachelor of Science, he spent four years at Bell Labs in New York as a research chemist."Alumnews". The Colorado Engineer. University of Colorado. 27 (1): 15. November 1930. Borgmann was awarded a fellowship to study in Norway and Sweden by The American-Scandinavian Foundation in May 1931."U. of N. Names Faculties Dean". Omaha World-Herald. January 7, 1947. Retrieved September 25, 2025. "Ruth Owen Lauds Scandinavian Ideals". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. May 8, 1933.
He and his wife sailed to England in late September of that same year, where he began studying abroad at the University of CambridgeThe Colorado Engineer. University of Colorado. 1931. 28–29: 47, 131. in pursuit of "the mechanism of the corrosion of zinc". While studying in England, Borgmann became lifelong friends with fellow student and Australian radio astronomer Joseph L. Pawsey.Goss, W. M.; Hooker, Claire; Ekers, Ronald D. (2023). "Pursuing 'Radio Astronomy': Pawsey's Travels to North America, the UK and Europe, 1947–1948". Joe Pawsey and the Founding of Australian Radio Astronomy: Early Discoveries, from the Sun to the Cosmos. Springer. pp. 245–246. . , Borgmann obtained his doctorate in chemical engineering (PhD, 1934) from Cambridge with his dissertation on Some Properties of the Metallic State.Borgmann, C. W. (1934). Some Properties of the Metallic State. (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. . He documented his experience in an essay titled "A Colorado Engineer at Cambridge", an article published for his alma mater.Borgmann, Carl W. (1933). "A Colorado Engineer at Cambridge". The Colorado Engineer. Boulder: College of Engineering of the University of Colorado. pp. 6, 24. Borgmann continued his studies as a postdoctoral fellow at the Karolinska Institute and the Metallographic Institute (Metallografiska institutet) in Stockholm, Sweden, and at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim, Norway."Dr. Carl Borgmann Is Commencement Speaker at VJC". The Burlington Free Press. March 21, 1953. Retrieved September 24, 2025.
Academic career Borgmann began lecturing at the University of North Carolina as an assistant professor of chemical engineering in 1934. The National Tube Company, then a subsidiary of U.S. Steel, hired him as a research scientist in 1937. Borgmann started working for the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) as head of their chemical engineering department and later their Engineering Experiment Station from 1938 to 1946. While at CU Boulder, he received a grant from the Sugar Research Foundation."Sugar Research Grants; Foundation Aids 7 More Scientists – 1944 Awards $250,000". The New York Times. December 10, 1944. p. 47. He supervised a pilot project that used ion-exchange to extract fructose from sugar in large quantities.Hockett, Robert C. (October 1947). "The Progress of Sugar Research". The Scientific Monthly. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 65 (4): 269–282.
At this time, Borgmann struck up a friendship with astronomer and atmospheric physicist Walt Roberts.Edmondson, F. K. (1998). "The Ford Foundation and the European Southern Observatory". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 29 (4): 309–326. During World War II, Borgmann was part of the Chemical Warfare Service and was on the National War Labor Board."Vermont U. Elects Head; Dr. Borgmann, Nebraska Dean, Is Choice for President". The New York Times. May 10, 1952. p. 23. In 1947, he left CU Boulder to become dean of faculties at the University of Nebraska (NU), where he stayed until 1951."Former President Carl W. Borgmann (1952–1958)." University of Vermont. Board of Trustees. Retrieved August 27, 2025. "Borgmann To Quit UVM". The Brattleboro Reformer. October 24, 1957. p. 1. While at NU, Borgmann was awarded a grant by the Research Corporation to investigate how environmental conditions affect the "cathodic polarization of common metals and alloys"."News and Notes". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 111 (2892): 615–616. June 2, 1950.
He left NU to become the sixteenth president of the University of Vermont (UVM) in 1952, succeeding William S. Carlson in the role and serving for six years.Thomas, John D. (2005). The University of Vermont. The Campus History Series. Arcadia. p. 102, 111. . . During his presidency, Borgmann cut tuition costs for students,Slayton, Tom V. (1991). "UVM, Carl Borgmann, and the State of Vermont". In Daniels, Robert Vincent (ed.). The University of Vermont: The First Two Hundred Years. University of Vermont. University Press of New England. pp. 282–297. . . helped to rewrite the university charter, raised new funding, and made plans for the future development of the university.Smallwood, Frank (2003). "Borgmann, Carl W. (1905–1998)". In Duffy, John J.; Hand, Samuel B.; Orth, Ralph H. (eds.). The Vermont Encyclopedia. Hanover: University Press of New England. p. 60. . . When Borgmann arrived, the school had multiple charters and was in a legal grey zone somewhere between a private and a public university due to the historical merge of the Vermont Agricultural College and UVM.
Borgmann soon realized that his assumption that UVM was a public school was wrong. Most people in Vermont, Borgmann discovered, erroneously believed UVM was a private school. Because of this confusion and its multiple charters, the school lacked significant state funding. Journalist Tom Slayton notes that when Borgmann began his presidency, in-state resident tuition at the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Engineering was $625 , the same amount paid by students out of state. At the time, this was considered the "highest in-state tuition then charged by any state university in the United States".
A culture clash of sorts ensued. Borgnmann discovered that UVM was fundraising as both a private and a public university, depending on the departments and the benefactors, and both the students and the faculty were losing out. This situation came about in part due to the culture of the East Coast in general, and New England in particular. Their approach to education stressed the exclusivity and high cost of private schools. Borgmann, on the other hand, came from the Midwestern United States, where its culture stressed the primacy of low cost, high quality public universities that were available to anyone who had the aptitude.
Borgmann's goal as an "educational populist" was to lower tuition costs for Vermont residents, raise the salaries of UVM faculty, and legitimize UVM as a public state university that opened up educational opportunities for all Vermonters. Borgmann succeeded in spite of the opposition from a member of the financial community who wanted UVM to be an exclusive private school. It took several years and the passage of a UVM bill through the State House and Senate in March 1955, but Borgmann was able to get the state to fund the school and with that appropriation cut tuition "nearly in half" for the majority of in-state students.
In the era of McCarthyism, one major controversy, the Novikoff Affair, occurred during his presidency. Cancer researcher Alex B. Novikoff was targeted as a former Communist and asked to testify in front of a U.S. Senate subcommittee and name other suspected Communists. Novikoff refused and was forced to leave the university by a review board. Catholic bishop Robert Francis Joyce, the first clergyman elected as a trustee at the university, cast the only dissenting vote. Novikoff spent the rest of his career at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.Clendinen, Dudley (May 22, 1983). "Vermont U. Honors McCarthy Era Victim It Ousted". The New York Times. Retrieved August 29, 2025. Holmes, David R. (1989). Stalking the Academic Communist: Intellectual Freedom and the Firing of Alex Novikoff. University Press of New England. . .
In 1983, thirty years after Novikoff was dismissed, the University of Vermont issued an apology. Novikoff later recalled that Borgmann "did not press him to testify" at the time. David R. Holmes, an associate professor of education at UVM, believed that Governor Lee E. Emerson, along with the prevailing public opinion of the time, played an influential role in forcing Borgmann and the trustees to dismiss Novikoff under the cloud of anti-communism. Decades later, Holmes writes that Novikoff came to believe that "Borgmann was a fine human being who had been unprepared to handle the situation". Holmes argues that Borgmann's professional reputation took a major hit from the Novikoff Affair and "never fully recovered".Holmes, David R. (1989). Stalking the Academic Communist: Intellectual Freedom and the Firing of Alex Novikoff. University Press of New England. pp. 5, 221, 238-239. . .
Borgmann announced his resignation suddenly in October 1957 when he accepted an offer to direct the science and engineering division at the Ford Foundation. He continued his duties at the university until June 1958."Losses in Higher Education". The Suburban List. October 31, 1957. 71 (44): 12-13. He was succeeded in his role as president of the university by John T. Fey, a former law clerk for the Warren Court. Borgmann's departure ended a seventeen-year period of scientific leadership in the presidency at UVM from 1941 to 1958, beginning with physicist John S. Millis and geologist William S. Carlson."McCune Is First Geographer To Become President of UVM". The Burlington Free Press. April 18, 1966. p. 13. Retrieved September 24, 2025.
Ford Foundation