His first years as president.
In his first years as president, Gould guided the college’s response to the the demographic pressures created by a large influx of returning veterans. Fundraising was needed to meet Carleton’s needs for a number of new buildings in the years ahead, beginning with a new library and a fine arts building. Gould exerted his leadership in pushing all departments of the college to ever higher levels of academic expectation and achievement. In 1946 he urged adoption of a uniform retirement age for faculty, and caused Carleton to become the first college in the Middle West to require that all applicants take College Entrance Board examinations. The following year he prompted the Board to clarify the status of longstanding affiliations with the Congregational, Baptist, and Episcopal denominations, and to declare that in the matter of student admissions church affiliation was distinctly secondary to scholastic attainments. 1948 saw the introduction of comprehensive exams for seniors. Seeking to attract and retain especially talented young teachers, he urged the Board to commit itself to increases in faculty salaries. He also sought to pursue longterm plans for strengthening Carleton’s relations with her own alumni, and in pursuit of this aim committed himself to a heavy program of speaking engagements with alumni groups around the country. And of course he gave particular attention to what he always considered his most important duty, the making of appointments. In a day when most hiring was done directly by the president, Carleton benefitted tremendously by Gould’s usually-shrewd judgment regarding the potential of young candidates for positions, and by his ability to persuade many of the best of them to come to Carleton.