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William M. Plater


William Marmaduke Plater (born July 26, 1945) is an American higher education consultant and Indiana University Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs, Philanthropy, and English, and Executive Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculties Emeritus at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI).

William M. Plater was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, United States. Plater attended the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign from 1963 to 1973, earning a baccalaureate (1967), master’s (1969), and PhD (1973), all in English literature. Plater met his future wife, Gail Maxwell, at the University of Illinois. They married in 1971 and had two children. They reside in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Plater worked for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences from 1967 until 1983. As research assistant and assistant to the dean, he wrote a monograph, Man and the Multitude (1967), for the College to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the university. He created an annual senior survey and conducted research on student satisfaction; he authored A Vocational Guide to the Liberal Arts and Sciences, published by the College in 1970 and widely disseminated to students for several years. As assistant to the dean and assistant dean, Plater joined art professor Billy Morrow Jackson in supporting the Special Education Opportunities Program by establishing a course designed for a large number of African American students recruited to the university following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The course enrolled several hundred students and Plater served as instructor. Offered from 1970–77, the course was based on an annual lecture series of prominent African American leaders. Plater also served on several campus committees considering a range of educational reforms and was one of the founders of Unit One established in 1973, serving as assistant director in 1971-72 and then acting director in 1972-73. One of the nation’s first “experimental” colleges integrating learning with residential facilities, Unit One has remained in continuous operation for over 40 years, now serving over 600 students a year. The University of Illinois Archives maintains the “William Plater Papers 1968-73” in its collection documenting the formation of Unit One and the lecture series. Plater served as assistant director (1974–1977) and associate director (1977–83) of the School of Humanities, where he played the lead administrative role in establishing the Cohn Scholars Program in 1978 and in 1981 the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory. During a period of significant decline in graduate enrollments in the humanities nationwide, Plater played a central role in working with department leaders and School officials to accommodate major changes in graduate programs and budgetary reductions. He left UIUC in 1983 for Indiana University.


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