Three years after his appointment to the Polytechnic Institute, 1928, he published Urban Influences on Higher Education in England and the United States.
[4] On May 16, 1932, after the burial of Drexel's previous president, Kenneth G. Matheson, Kolbe was invited by the Board of Trustees to visit the institute.
During his first year of presidency Kolbe surveyed the institute and made several recommendations involving the strengthening of the internal organization.
He achieved this by centralizing the admissions process and replacing the Faculty Council with a governing body, with deans, for each school.
This program grew rapidly during the times of war, with sixteen various classes being offered in the field of scientific national defense by 1941.