| John Cranford Adams | |
| Office: | 2nd President of Hofstra University |
| Term Start: | May 16, 1945[1] |
| Term End: | October 1, 1964[2] |
| Predecessor: | Howard S. Brower (Acting) |
| Successor: | Clifford Lee Lord |
| Birth Date: | 11 October 1903 |
| Birth Place: | Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
| Death Place: | Ithaca, New York, United States |
| Alma Mater: | Cornell University King's College, Cambridge |
John Cranford Adams (October 11, 1903 – November 24, 1986)[3] [4] was an American educator and academic administrator who served as the second president of the Hofstra University from 1944 to 1964.
Adams was born October 11, 1903, to John Davis and Mary (Cranford) Adams. He attended Cornell University, where he was a member of the Quill and Dagger society and received a B.A. in 1926 and a Ph.D. in 1935. He also studied at King's College, Cambridge, England from 1926 to 1928.[5]
He was an instructor in English at Syracuse University from 1926 to 1928 and at Cornell from 1930 to 1937. He taught at Cornell from 1937 to 1944, first as assistant professor and then associate professor. He was named the second President of Hofstra University in 1944. During his 20 years tenure at Hofstra, the school grew from a small liberal arts college of 367 students to a major university with an enrollment of 9,000. The campus theater John Cranford Adams Playhouse and the John Cranford Adams Chair in Literature are named in his honor.