Introduction

Biography

Frank was the son of Dr. James Mar­vin and Ar­mi­na Le­Su­er. He mar­ried twice: to Elin­or Grif­fith Mc­Kean (1876) and Jo­se­phine March (1902).

His fa­ther was for ma­ny years a pro­fess­or of math­ema­tics at Al­le­gha­ny College, Mead­ville, Penn­syl­van­ia, and lat­er Chan­cel­lor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kan­sas (KU), Law­rence, Kan­sas.

Graduating from Al­le­gha­ny Col­lege in 1871, Frank de­vot­ed several years to prac­ti­cal en­gin­eer­ing work, and in 1875 be­came an in­struct­or in math­ema­­tics and phys­ics at KU. In 1883, he was ap­point­ed pro­fess­or of ci­vil en­gin­eer­ing.

When KU was re­or­gan­ized in 1891 and a school of en­gin­eer­ing was es­tab­lished, Frank was elect­ed as the first dean. Marv­in Hall on the KU cam­pus is named af­ter him.

Frank al­so served as pre­si­dent of the So­ci­ety for the Pro­mo­tion of En­gin­eer­ing Edu­ca­tion.

Despite his tech­ni­cal car­eer, Frank was deep­ly in­volved in the arts—he was a tal­ent­ed or­gan­ist and compos­er who fre­quent­ly con­trib­ut­ed to the mus­ic­al life of his com­mun­ity and church.