He elevated the stature of the College of Illinois in massive and courageous methods, however former faculty president Stanley O. Ikenberry’s favourite story to inform of his 16 years on the faculty’s helm was about an surprising home celebration.
Mr. Ikenberry, who was simply 44 when he accepted the college’s prime job in 1979, was enjoying basketball along with his sons on the ring hooked up to the storage of the stately president’s house on the Urbana campus when a gaggle of 4 younger males approached him with a query.
They have been college students, and so they needed to take over the president’s home for a single night time to entertain dates. Mr. Ikenberry didn’t dismiss the concept outright, however as an alternative stated they’d must run the concept previous his spouse, Judy.
“So that they got here in, and I stated ‘no alcohol,’ ” Judy says. “And so they stated ‘in fact,’ and so they produced a menu of nonalcoholic drinks, and I used to be impressed. And so they stated their moms would assist with the cooking. And Stan and I agreed that they may try this.”
They employed a limo and picked up their dates and, in a ploy to construct up pleasure about their last vacation spot, first went to the scholar union and all acquired out of the automobile earlier than instructing their dates to get again in. They did the identical factor at a resort earlier than ending up on the house of the college president.
“This time their dates wouldn’t get out of the limo, so Stan and I needed to exit and greet them,” says Judy, noting that she and her husband and children went out to dinner to provide the younger {couples} some privateness.
“After we got here house, the place was spotless and so silent and went to the far finish of the home and we discovered them, and so they have been all holding arms and saying a prayer. It was essentially the most lovely factor you possibly can think about. We later discovered that the younger males had cast their friendship in a church group,” says Judy, noting that the night got here to be generally known as “the final word date.”
“That was Stan, he believed in college students and needed to assist them put their concepts into impact, and typically it’s a must to take an opportunity,” she says.
Mr. Ikenberry died April 1 at his house in Boca Grande, Florida. He was 90.
He had a colourful character, a fast wit and may very well be as adroit and persuasive chatting in educational circles as he was with politicians whom the state’s flagship college trusted for funding.
Excessive on Mr. Ikenberry’s checklist of priorities when he got here to the college in 1979 was to lift the pay for college to make the varsity extra aggressive in luring prime expertise.
In 1982, he consolidated the varsity’s two Chicago campuses — Chicago Circle and the Medical Middle — into what’s now generally known as College of Illinois Chicago to reinforce the picture and enhance the standard of the college’s presence in Chicago.
“That was not a straightforward factor to do, however it was finished and has grown into a powerful establishment to today, and he was very, very pleased with that,” Judy says. “He was very a lot a person of Chicago in addition to Urbana.”
Chicago grew to become a significant focus for Mr. Ikenberry, who spent about 40% of his time right here, crashing at a lakefront condominium that the College of Illinois Basis purchased in 1985.
In 1991, Mr. Ikenberry risked his job to face up for the successes that have been being racked up in Chicago — and his beliefs.
At concern was who would take the reins from an present chancellor of the College of Illinois Chicago.
An educational search committee, in addition to Mr. Ikenberry, backed Jim Stukel, who was already serving as the varsity’s vice chancellor.
However Mayor Richard M. Daley and Jim Thompson, who’d just lately left workplace after 14 years as governor of Illinois, tried to upend the tutorial choice course of by pushing for Paula Wolff, a former Thompson aide.
Mr. Ikenberry, who’d turn out to be a revered nationwide determine on this planet of upper schooling, threatened to resign if Wolff acquired the gig.
In the end, Thompson’s successor, Gov. Jim Edgar, one other former Thompson aide, switched his help to Stukel, Wolff bowed out, and the college’s board of trustees voted to provide Stukel the job.
“Daley and Thompson, that’s quite a bit to have to withstand. It took a whole lot of braveness, it was a gutsy name, however he would have resigned,” says Stukel, who later took over for Mr. Ikenberry when he stepped down as president of the college in 1996.
Mr. Ikenberry was born March 30, 1935, in Lamar, Colorado.
His father, Oliver Samuel Ikenberry, was an administrator in Colorado colleges and later grew to become president of Shepherd School, now Shepherd College, in West Virginia.
Stanley Ikenberry attended Shepherd earlier than incomes a grasp’s diploma and a doctorate from Michigan State College, the place he studied the issues of upper schooling.
He served as dean of the faculty of human sources on the College of West Virginia on the age of 30 earlier than transferring to Penn State, the place he labored as senior vice chairman for administration.
He then grew to become the youngest College of Illinois president within the faculty’s historical past when he took the place at age 44.
“President Ikenberry was a trailblazer as a College of Illinois president and led by a interval of strong progress and the event of a lot of what we all know now as the fashionable U. of I. system,” present college President Tim Killeen says.
Mr. Ikenberry served as president of the American Council on Training, the principle lobbying arm for larger schooling, from 1996 to 2001.
He returned to the helm of the College of Illinois for a number of months in 2010 to serve in an interim capability throughout a big state and system finances disaster, which he helped handle.
Along with his spouse, Mr. Ikenberry is survived by his sons David, Steven and John, in addition to eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
A funeral service will happen April 26 in Boca Grande, Florida, at 1 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. It will likely be accessible on-line.
