Campus mourns passing of Donald Boydston

Donald N. Boydston, who guided Southern Illinois University Carbondale's nationally recognized health education department for 33 years, died Sunday, March 6, 2005 in Naples, Fla. He was 84.

Donald N. Boydston

Recruited to Carbondale by then-University President Delyte W. Morris in 1955, Boydston shaped the University's Department of Health Education and Recreation by attracting not just pre-eminent faculty to campus, but also finding and mentoring younger faculty members who have gone on to distinguished careers in the health education field. Boydston also guided the department's esteemed graduate program.

While at SIUC, Boydston also helped transform the athletics department from the small-college ranks into a big-time university program in 15 years as athletics director from 1957 to 1972.

Boydston and his wife, Jo Ann -- an internationally respected Dewey scholar who led the University's Center for Dewey Studies to international prominence -- provided a $1 million gift in 1994 to establish the Jo Ann and Don Boydston Endowed Chair of American Philosophy in the College of Liberal Arts.

Boydston was a strong believer in a comprehensive athletics program where supporting minor sports programs was as important as support for football and basketball.

That emphasis showed in the development of one of the nation's most well rounded athletic programs in the 1960's -- moving from National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics status to a force in the NCAA.

Boydston also recruited the best and brightest minority student-athletes to campus, including former Saluki football standouts Carver Shannon, Sam Silas, Houston Antwine, and Lionel Antoine along with Walt Frazier, who helped lead Hartman's men's basketball team to the 1967 National Invitational Tournament title.

Seymour Bryson, SIUC's associate chancellor for diversity, came to SIUC in 1955 and was a student worker for Boydston for four years while in college. Boydston was "primarily responsible for integrating SIUC's intercollegiate athletic programs," Bryson said.

"During a period of time when it was not fashionable to recruit students of color, I think Dr. Boydston set the climate for Southern to become a pioneer in integrating the intercollegiate athletic program, and he was primarily responsible for recruiting most of the athletes during that time from the deep South," Bryson said.

A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Boydston grew up in Oklahoma and received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Oklahoma State University, and a master's and doctoral degree from Columbia University. He was a decorated veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who saw action at Saipan and Iwo Jima during World War II.

Boydston's first teaching position was as a professor in health education at the University of Mississippi, where he stayed for six years before coming to SIUC.

His wife, Jo Ann Boydston, survives.