Rixford Kinney Snyder held the keys to the kingdom for Stanford applicants. For more than two decades, he oversaw undergraduate admissions to the Farm. He also made his mark at the other end of the Stanford experience, leading trips that reconnected alumni with their alma mater.
Snyder, ’30, MA ’34, PhD ’40, died January 8 of heart failure. He was 100. Snyder was a history instructor at Stanford from 1937 until 1943, when he joined the Navy. Upon returning to the Farm in 1946, he and fellow history professor George Knoles penned a classic textbook, Readings in Western Civilization.
In 1948, University President Wallace Sterling, PhD ’38, asked Snyder to serve as director of admission. In 1964, the post was elevated to a deanship. He stayed in the office for another five years.
In 1969, Snyder began a new career, founding what is now the Stanford Alumni Association Travel/Study program. The so-called “Dean of the Danube,” Snyder led two dozen boat trips through Austria in the 1970s and 1980s. “He was just watching boats going up and down the Danube River and thought he could create an experience to share with alumni,” longtime friend and Alumni Association colleague Darien Dufour Walker, ’60, told Stanford Report.
Snyder formally retired in 1974 but remained a fixture in the Travel/Study office and attended alumni trips into his 70s. His wife, Elliott, died four years ago at 94. He is survived by two nieces.
