Carl Frederick Kranz

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Carl Frederick Kranz is recognized as the founding president of Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, Illinois. Kranz was the first leader of the institution which would evolve over the years into Elmhurst College, the German Evangelical Proseminary. Starting with just 14 students, all young men, Kranz set out to establish an institution of liberal arts education to serve the growing communities of northern Illinois. He remained in the presidency from the founding of the Proseminary in 1871 until he was succeeded in 1877 by Phillip Frederick Meusch. The Kranz Forum at Elmhurst College is named in his honor and contains a statue Reinhold Niebuhr, of one of the College's most illustrious and well-known graduates.