Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 2, 2023

Thomas A. Spragens (1917–2006) was an American administrator who was the 17th president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. A graduate of the University of Kentucky, Spragens worked for the state and federal government early in his career before joining the staff at Stanford University as a presidential advisor. He was the president of Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, for a five-year term, and left Stephens for Centre in 1957. He was an effective fundraiser and was instrumental in the school's integration; Centre admitted its first black student in 1962 and hired its first black faculty member in 1971. While in office, he helped to facilitate the founding of what is now the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, and he attended the 1968 Democratic National Convention as a delegate to support Senator Eugene McCarthy. He resigned in 1981, at which point Centre's enrollment and faculty numbers had both nearly doubled and its endowment had grown.