Alan Valentine (1901-1980), our youngest president at age thirty-four, came to Rochester from Yale University in 1935. His fifteen-year administration saw the final years of the great depression, the many stresses and dislocations of the Second World War, and the surging enrollment that greatly taxed University facilities after the War.

By March 1943, enrollment on the River Campus had fallen by one third, due to the effects of the War. It was feared that by fall 1943, it would fall even further, as low as 200, as more students and prospective students entered the service. Such drastic reduction was averted when in April 1943 a Naval V-12 unit was assigned to the University. The first Navy and Marine students arrived in July and from then until the program was phased out in 1946, it is estimated that more than 1,550 men received academic and military training.

According to George Eastman's will, the Eastman House was left to the University, to be used as the home of UR presidents. President and Mrs. Rush Rhees lived there from 1932 to 1935. Alan Valentine was in residence with his family from 1935 to 1948, when the House was established as an International Museum of Photography.

Anticipating the return to peace, the University had prepared an informational booklet, "Education for Veterans at the University of Rochester," in early 1945 and updated it in 1946.

On the eve of the University's second century, its fourth president resigned. Stating that he had always planned to stay only for ten years, but that the War caused him to defer his plans, Alan Valentine submitted his resignation in November, 1949 to the Board of Trustees. Valentine had taken a year's leave of absence to become chief of Economic Cooperation (better known as the Marshall Plan) in The Netherlands, the birthplace of our fifth president.