Duncan S. Ballantine was born in Garden City, New Jersey, in 1912. Before arriving at Reed, Ballantine was an associate professor at MIT, where he helped to establish a core humanities program. In 1952, Ballantine became president of Reed College. At Reed, Ballantine made changes to disciplinary processes and faculty governance procedures. Then, the Velde Committee, a subcommittee of the House Un-American Activities Committee, arrived in Portland. The Velde Committee suspected three Reed faculty members of harboring communist sympathies. Ballantine and the Board of Trustees decided to break one faculty members tenure, and the professor left the college.

Ballantine resigned in 1954. He went on to serve as the President of the American College for Girls in Istanbul, Turkey.

[Information from Presidents of Reed on the Reed website.]