Ernest Boyer | |
---|---|
United States Commissioner of Education | |
In office March 31, 1977 – June 30, 1979 |
|
President | Jimmy Carter |
Preceded by | Edward Aguirre |
Succeeded by | William Smith |
Personal details | |
Born |
Ernest LeRoy Boyer September 13, 1928 Dayton, Ohio, U.S. |
Died | December 8, 1995 Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. |
(aged 67)
Alma mater |
Messiah College Greenville College Ohio State University University of Southern California |
Ernest LeRoy Boyer (September 13, 1928 – December 8, 1995) was an American educator who most notably served as Chancellor of the State University of New York, United States Commissioner of Education, and President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Boyer was recipient of numerous awards, including over 140 honorary doctorates.
Boyer was born on September 13, 1928 in Dayton, Ohio, to Clarence and Ethel Boyer. He was one of three males in his family. His father worked in the basement of their home managing a wholesale book store and running a mail-order greeting-card and office-supply. William Boyer, Ernest’s paternal grandfather, was said to be the most influential figure in his younger years. William Boyer was head of the Dayton Mission of the Brethren in Christ Church and directed Ernest toward "a people-centered life." He taught Ernest, primarily through his own life, that service to others was a high calling and obligation. Boyer believed deeply in the connectedness of all things. That was a primary reason why he would later propose the connection of teaching, service, and research in Scholarship Reconsidered. He worried the research had trumped the roles of teaching and service in the university, and faculty roles were lesser for it. Interestingly, this concern was shared by Abraham Flexner, who worked for Carnegie nearly a hundred years earlier.
Boyer attended Messiah College where he met his future wife and the mother of his four children, Kathryn Garis Tyson; in subsequent years, he would return to Messiah to serve as chairman and as a member of its board of trustees. After two years at Messiah College he transferred to and graduated from Greenville College. He began graduate studies at the Ohio State University, but left for the University of Southern California, where he earned his master's and doctoral degrees. He was a post-doctoral member in medical audiology at the University of Iowa Hospital.