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Robert Newton (1889-1985) was born in Montréal, Québec. He was educated at McGill where he obtained his PhD from Macdonald College. After recovering from wounds suffered in the First World War, he was recruited by President Henry Marshall Tory to teach agriculture at the University of Alberta. After following Tory to the National Research Council in the 1930s, Newton returned to the University of Alberta as dean of Agriculture, becoming the university’s fourth president in 1941.

Under Newton’s leadership, the School of Education became a faculty in 1942, and had the responsibility of training all teachers in Alberta. After the Second World War, the large influx of veterans and the revival of the provincial economy led to the first new buildings on campus in many years. New wings were added to the Medical Building (Dentistry/Pharmacy Centre) and a new library (Rutherford South) was built.

Newton was part of the group responsible for the modernization of the university’s governance structure through the new University Act of 1942, which transferred responsibility for most academic matters from the Senate to the General Faculties Council. Newton was a founding member and the first Governor of the Arctic Institute of North America and a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Canada.