David H. Porter *62

David Porter, a classicist who had been president of both Carleton College and Skidmore College, died March 26, 2016, after an accidental fall. He was 81.

Porter was the son of Hugh Porter, a well-known organist and president of Union Theological Seminary’s School of Music. In 1958, he graduated from Swarthmore College, and in 1962 he earned a Ph.D. in classics from Princeton. That year, he joined the faculty at Carleton College, in Northfield, Minn., and taught classics and music.

From 1986 to 1987, Porter was president of Carleton College. Then he went on to become president of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., after the 1987 passing of his first wife, Laudi, whom he had married in 1958. After leaving Skidmore in 1999, he taught at Williams College and Indiana University, and then returned to Skidmore, where he was the Tisch Family Distinguished Professor.

Throughout his life, Porter was an active musician, performing on the harpsichord and piano. He received honorary degrees from Skidmore in 1998 and Carleton in 2011. He published widely on the classics, as well as on the writer Willa Cather and other topics.

Porter is survived by his second wife, Helen; her daughter; and his four children and grandchildren from his first marriage.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.