The Presidents: Harry H. Hagemann

Harry Henry Hagemann was born January 25, 1900 in rural Black Hawk County, Iowa. He was the sixth president of the Board of Regents, serving from 1958 until 1963. He followed Dwight Rider and preceded Alfred Noehren. He was appointed to the Board by Governor William S. Beardsley in 1951.

Hagemann graduated from Waterloo East High School and served in the United States Navy during World War I, achieving the rank of Apprentice Seaman. He enrolled at the Iowa State Teachers College (UNI) in 1920 and attended the State University of Iowa (U of I) in 1922. Hagemann earned an LL.B degree (Bachelor of Laws) from Georgetown University in 1926. He was admitted to the Washington D.C. Bar Association following graduation.
That same year, Hagemann returned to Iowa and was admitted to the Supreme Court of Iowa Bar. He practiced law as a member of the Hagemann and Hagemann law firm, beginning in 1927. The following year he was elected as Bremer County Attorney and served in that capacity until 1932. He married Shirley Kilpatrick in 1933. 

Following his 12-year appointment to the Board of Regents, Hagemann served as chair of the Wartburg Board of Regents and was serving as an ex-officio member when he died on December 15, 1970. Wartburg College had awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1959.

Unit III of UNI’s Regents Complex was named in his honor in March 1965 and opened for students that fall. The Regents Complex grew to four dormitories and a dining center by the later 1960s, with each building named after a president of the Board of Regents. Dwight Rider, Henry Shull, Hagemann, Alfred Noehren, and Stanley Redeker served consecutively as Board presidents from 1941 until 1973 and were the namesakes of these buildings.