Bertholf was a native of rural Kansas, attended Friends University, and graduated from Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. He served in the coast artillery in World War I (stationed at Fort Monroe, Virginia). Bertholf undertook graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1921 and began his career teaching biology at North Carolina College for Women. For 15 years, he supplemented his teaching income with summer work performing research for the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine. He also taught at Western Maryland College for 25 years, where he was also Dean of Freshman and Dean of Faculty. In 1930, Bertholf received a postdoctoral fellowship to study in Munich on a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, and in 1948 moved to the West Coast to teach at the College of the Pacific, as a Professor of Biology and Academic Vice-President. In 1958, Lloyd M. Bertholf became the 14th President of IWU and he served until 1968.

Holmes was the 13th IWU President, 1947 – 1958. Holmes, like many of his predecessors, was a Methodist minister, and also had been an Army Chaplain in the 165th Infantry, which became the famous 69th Infantry in World War I. He taught for three years at Garrett Biblical Institute and later became the Professor of Religion and Philosophy and Dean at Dakota Wesleyan University. For two years, he was the Secretary of Institutes in the Epworth League Department of the Methodist Board of Education, and before coming to IWU, he was the Secretary of the Department of Educational Institutions for African Americans for 14 years.

Shaw was born in Minnesota in 1869. He graduated from Moores Hill College in Indiana in 1889. He taught in Kentucky for four years and then entered Garrett Biblical Institute where he was given the S.T.B. degree in 1896. Shaw was the corresponding secretary of the Methodist Board of Foreign Missions in New York, as well as a Trustee of IWU for more than three decades, and served on the Board of Trustees before he was made the 12th President of IWU in 1939. His term as President of the University lasted until 1947.

Brooks was from Burlington, Iowa, and he was the first president of Wesleyan who was not an ordained minister of the Methodist church. Brooks received his A.B. from York College, his M.A. from Columbia University, and his Ph.D. from the State University of Iowa. He was also the superintendent of the Burlington Junior College, president of the Iowa Teachers association. He was IWU’s 11^th president and served from 1937-1939.

Barnes was born in England and brought to Canada by his parents when he was four years old. Barnes graduated from Hamline University at St. Paul, Minnesota in 1897 where he became a leader in athletics, debating, and other student activities. Barnes was doing graduate work at Harvard University when he was called to the presidency of Illinois Wesleyan in 1905 and he served until 1908.