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William Lowe Boyd

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Bill Boyd was the best of colleagues, and I was proud to have co-edited his last book, The Transformation of Great American School Districts.

Please write your remembrances of Bill or notes to the family below. I will see that they are transmitted. --ctk

From: The family of William Boyd

William Lowe Boyd of State College died September 21, 2008 at home. He was born on September 11, 1935 in Louisville, Kentucky to Norris and Helen Boyd and is survived by his wife of 50 years Emily Remine Boyd and children, Stephen Norris Boyd, Katherine Shields Boyd, Anne Boyd Rabkin and son in law, Brian Rabkin and a granddaughter, Helen Ila Rabkin.

Bill was a graduate of the University of Tennessee (B.S., 1957), Northwestern University (M.M., 1961), and the University of Chicago (PhD., 1973). Bill and Emily met as undergraduate musicians in the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. Bill was a french hornist.

Dr. Boyd is Batschelet Chair Professor of Educational Leadership at Pennsylvania State University and editor of the American Journal of Education. He has been a professor at Penn State University for 28 years. A specialist in education policy and politics and educational administration, he has published over 140 articles and has co-edited seventeen books. He has served as president of the Politics of Education Association, as an officer of the American Educational Research Association, and has been a Fulbright Scholar in Australia and England, and a Visiting Scholar at ten universities: Monash University, Deakin University, University of Liverpool, Gothenburg University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Wales at Cardiff, the University of Warwick, the University of Washington, Umea University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Rochester. In 2002 he received the “Roald F. Campbell Lifetime Achievement Award” from the University Council of Educational Administration. In 2007 he received the “Student Mentorship Award” from the Penn State Department of Education Policy Studies.

As a practitioner he has served as an elementary and high school teacher, as Assistant to the Principal of the University of Chicago High School (part of the famous Laboratory School founded by John Dewey), as Assistant to the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Liaison to the Chicago Public Schools, at the University of Chicago; as Professor-in-Charge of Graduate Programs in Educational Administration at Penn State; and in a variety of leadership roles for almost 50 summers in the educational programs at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.

A Celebration of Life will be held at Interlochen next summer. Memorial donations, in lieu of flowers, may be made to The Educational Leadership Program in the College of Education, Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802 or to the Minnesota Building or Braeside Preservation Fund, Interlochen Center of the Arts, Interlochen, Michigan 49643.

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Date submitted: 05/23/2008
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List of Comments

Last Name	First Name	Comments
	The Boyd Family	From: The family of William Boyd Thank you for the care, concern and loving support you have shown Bill during these past two years of his battle with pancreatic cancer. He placed a very high value on your friendship and colleagueship. Sincerely, The William Boyd Family
Allen	Ann	Dear Family of William Boyd, William Boyd was an inspiration. From the time I first met him in person on a shuttle to a UCEA conference as a graduate student, I knew he was a kind and wonderful person. The more I talked with him through the years, the more I was taken by his generosity and engagement. My deepest sympathy goes out to Emily and the family. Bill Boyd will be greatly missed.
Brooks	Jeff	As someone near the beginning of their academic career, Dr. Boyd left a big impression on me in a relatively short time. Certainly he was an important researcher, but perhaps more importantly he was in my perspective an engaged, humble and caring scholar--a man of tremendous intellect who nonetheless felt he had something to learn from every person and idea he encountered. When thinking of Dr. Boyd, I always go back to a session at UCEA a few years ago where I was serving as discussant. There was no one, not a single person, in the audience except for Dr. Boyd, who sat on the edge of his seat eagerly waiting for the presentation to begin and remained in that state for the whole session. He listened to the presentations and then helped engage the presenters in the most wonderful and supportive conversation, and he made several suggestions to each about their studies. The session was on a topic I understood to be outside his areas of interest and after the session I asked him why he was so keen on this session. Among other things he said, "What these people are doing is tremendously important," and that struck a chord with me. Based on that comment, I always urge my students to focus, as I believe Dr. Boyd always did, NOT on their research interests, but on studying what is important. The topic of the session? Spirituality and leadership. Truly a remarkable man, who touched many people's lives with compassion, an enlightened perspective, and sensitivity.
Cooper	Bruce	Bill Boyd was the perfect friend and colleague. He loved his work, and made contributions in his writing, teaching, and importantly in his mentoring of students and colleagues. I remember his coming to Fordham on an NCATE visit. We talked, and I told him that the great string duo, the Kavafian sisters, were playing at Carnegie Hall and gave him the date. He arranged his site visit so we could attend the fantastic concert. Fordham was amazed that I knew when Bill was visiting before the Dean did. I never told them, until now, that the date enabled us to hear the violinist and violist play a concert. Not only was he a scholar teacher, he also played French horn and was a long-time administrator at the Interlochen Center, a music camp. And Interlochen is holding a special remembrance of our beloved colleague, William Lowe Boyd
Driscoll	Mary Erina	As so many people have mentioned, Bill was not only a first-rate scholar and gentle man devoted to his family; he was also a musician, and in that sphere he displayed the same enthusiasm, curiosity and sheer delight when encountering something he thought worthwhile that he did as a professor. A lovely memory that came to mind when I heard of his death on Monday takes me back to a snowy January Sunday afternoon in 1995 in Amsterdam. Along with several American colleagues, Bill among them, I had just finished attending the ICSEI conference, held that year in the northeast part of the Netherlands near the German border. Conference participants had dispersed from Frieseland late Friday to points all across Europe and the US, many of them, like me, passing through Amsterdam on their way home. That Sunday I had decided to make my way to the ticket office determined to get a seat for whatever program was offered that afternoon at the Concertgebuow. As I moved toward the window I noticed to my great fortune that ahead of me a familiar figure was studying the schedule with exactly the same purpose in mind. Bill and I laughed when we recognized we were both up to the same thing, bought tickets and spent some time in a museum while waiting for the program to start. It turned out that the most amazing coincidence was not that Bill and I found ourselves at the same concert without any joint planning or purpose ahead of time; unwittingly, as it happens, we had both stumbled across a special program that featured the French horn, (Bill's instrument) throughout, with unusually prominent solos in every piece offered. Bill was delighted and as always, helped me see (and hear) in a new light.
Ginsberg	Rick	Bill was a great innovative thinker and a true gentleman. While I was a graduate student many years ago at the University of Chicago working with Paul Peterson, Bill was one of those we looked to as the model for us to emulate. He was always kind and gracious, even to us grad students yearning to enter the academy. Over the years I got to know him a bit better but never lost that sense of admiration for his work and his persona. I loved his sense of humor, and can still hear him laughing away at something silly obne of us might share. He'll be missed, but never forgotten. Rick Ginsberg
Hess	Rick	Bill emanated such a good and vibrant and gentle presence, it's hard to imagine that his good cheer and graciousness and kindness and decency have been taken from us. I first got to know Bill in the mid-90s when I was a grad student. Unlike so many in our field, Bill was generous with his attention and interested in chatting with a grad student at another institution. Selfishly, I'll always be grateful to Bill as a reviewer who helped get my first book published. In his typical style, he opted to focus not on all the manifold weaknesses of the dissertation but to speak courteously and thoughtfully about its strengths. That was the common thread in my dealings with Bill. I knew him as a man who had a passion for his work and put enormous stock in knowledge and scholarship, but who pursued all of his endeavors with good cheer and a generous heart. I can't think of a better way to honor Bill's memory than to try to approach our work in the same fashion.
Kerchner	Charles	Bill was a great colleague. Colleagues are one of the joys of academic life, and one of the dividends of modern technology is the ability to cultivate and foster relationships from afar. So, even though we saw one another only once a year or so, I had the pleasure of frequent cards with birds that sing and interesting emails that say appropriately snarky things about Republicans as well as substantive conversations about our work. Bill was one of the great synthesizers of academic work, and he gathered people to make it possible. It was Bill's initiative that made the two edited volumes we did together possible, and I am most pleased that he lived to see The Transformation of Great American School Districts come off the press. I miss him already.
Kirst	Michael	Bill Boyd was a leader in research and policy concerning many aspects of the politics of education. His research and writing was insightful and filled with unique contributions. His range was enormous in terms of topics and levels of government. He nurtured students and young scholars. His legacy will last a very long time, and he taught me a great deal about education politics. His ideas will be in my work forever.
Lindle	Janie Clark	Bill's legacy spans scholarship and the arts. That's a profound breadth and depth, a unique kind of genius. Even more impressive about his genius is that it was so open, gracious and generous, not the self-absorbed or selfish kind. I will miss his gracious genius.
McCarthy	Martha	I still cannot quite accept that I won't have the privilege of seeing my friend and colleague again. Bill Boyd was always so upbeat, and you simply felt better being around him. And the wonderful email cards he and Emily sent to mark various holidays always brought me joy. Of course, Bill's legacy lives on in the important work he did and in his publications that will continue to influence generations of scholars and practitioners. But what I'll remember most is the wonderful, caring person who made my life better because he was my friend.
Miron	Gary	Bill impacted students and scholars around the world. He visited with me and my students when I worked in Sweden in the 90s and he opened our eyes to the global interconnectedness of education policy. He is/will be/ greatly missed.
Shipps	Dorothy	Although Bill and I had been at many meetings sharing ideas over the past decade, I knew little about his source of inspiration and grace until recently. A few weeks ago, I had the great privilege of being able to speak with Bill about his remembrances of graduate school and his life as a musician. He was tired but, as ever, generous, giving me more time than his doctors would have advised. He was also humble about his initiation into the realms of education politics and sociology, claiming to have been "admitted on the margins" and recalling that "I don't know if I had a single social science course before I hit graduate school in 1965." He had to read (and reread with a dictionary in hand) extensively and widely simply to follow the classes. Bill also told me about having initially prepared to be a band or orchestra conductor - his master's thesis was a transcription of an orchestral piece for a band. But after working at this for a few years, and meeting and falling in love with Emily through this work, they decided that being a band director was a "young man's job." There was too much talent chasing too few good positions, so Bill applied to a doctoral program at the University of Chicago while at Northwestern. Throughout graduate school, in a post at the University of Rochester and then at Penn State, he always maintained this personal love of music during summers at Interlaken. For decades he and Emily spent 9-10 weeks of every summer helping to run the music camp, their growing family ensconced in a cabin by the water. Some more senior professors in his early pre-tenure years thought this inappropriate - he should spend his summers writing books and chapters, like all other anxious professors. When the political science discipline turned to mathematical modeling - in imitation of economists - he sometimes felt out of step, but kept playing and listening to music, directing a "school" for musicians and loving every moment of it. When I asked him if his lifelong love of music might not have enabled his especially broadly theoretical approach to education politics as well as his mental agility (thinking both of Howard Gardner and Maxine Greene) he demurred. Bill was only willing to say that if he had a talent at all it was in synthesis. Indeed. And in helping so many of us less senior scholars come to embrace our own vision while approaching others' with open hearts and minds. He will be missed.
Shoho	Alan	Bill always had a smile and a welcoming manner about him. Whenever I saw him at AERA or UCEA, he was so upbeat and full of life. After sending him two former master's students of mine, Bonnie Johnson Fusarelli and Mario Torres to Penn State for their doctoral studies, he would always say to me, "Send me all the bright Texans you have." The world got a little dimmer when Bill passed away, but I am grateful I was able to meet a human being like him - he made us all a little better.