Glenn W. Frank

Glenn William Frank (January 13, 1928 – August 23, 1993) was an American geologist and professor at Kent State University. He is credited with saving many student lives after the Kent State shootings of 1970.^[1]

Frank was born in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, United States, to Harold and Gertrude Frank, both schoolteachers. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps, from 1946 to 1947. As an undergraduate on the G.I. Bill he studied geology at Kent State University, going on to postgraduate study at the University of Maine and Case Western Reserve University.^[2][3] From 1953 to his retirement in 1984 Frank was a geology professor at Kent State University.^[4]

Frank married Betty Louise Dahlgren in 1949 and had three children. He died of cancer in 1993.^[2] A scholarship was established in his honor at Kent State.^[5]

On May 4, 1970, four unarmed students were shot dead at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard, during a peace rally against the expansion of the Vietnam War into neutral Cambodia by the United States. There had been repeated protests against police and military recruiting on campus, and the Reserve Officers' Training Corps building was burned down on May 2. The mayor of Kent called in the Ohio Army National Guard, which attempted to disperse students on May 4.

Frank was a faculty marshal at the student protest on that day.^[1] He managed to persuade students to disperse after the National Guard had fired on the crowd.^[6] Immediately after the shootings, many angry students were ready to launch an all-out attack on the National Guard. Faculty members led by Frank pleaded with the students to leave the campus Commons and not to give in to violent escalation:

I don't care whether you've never listened to anyone before in your lives. I am begging you right now. If you don't disperse right now, they're going to move in, and it can only be a slaughter. Would you please listen to me? Jesus Christ, I don't want to be a part of this ... !^[7]

بعد عشرين دقيقة من الحديث، غادر الطلاب قاعة الاجتماعات، بينما كان مسعفو الإسعاف يعالجون الجرحى، وغادر الحرس المنطقة. وقال ابن البروفيسور فرانك، الذي كان حاضراً أيضاً في ذلك اليوم: "لقد أنقذ حياتي وحياة مئات آخرين بكل تأكيد". ^{[ 8 ]}

كتب فرانك لاحقًا كتيبًا إعلاميًا حول الحادثة. ^{[ 9 ]} وانتقد كلًا من إطلاق النار وعمل هيئة المحلفين الكبرى التي حققت في الأحداث التي وقعت في حرم جامعة كينت ستيت، ووُجهت إليه تهمة ازدراء المحكمة لمخالفته أمرًا بعدم التحدث عن التحقيق بعد الإدلاء بشهادته أمام هيئة المحلفين الكبرى. ^{[ 10 ]}

• Website about Frank and his role in the events of May 4, 1970Archived May 4, 2020, at the Wayback Machine