ALAN SIMPSON, 85; LED VASSAR COLLEGE NORTH SPORTS FINAL Edition

Alan Simpson, an award-winning University of Chicago professor and dean who went on to become president of Vassar College in New York, died of pneumonia Tuesday in Lake Forest Hospital. A resident of Wilmette, he was 85. A native of England, Mr. Simpson was a graduate of Oxford University and a Comm...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inChicago tribune (1963)
Main Author Meg McSherry Breslin, Tribune Staff Writer
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chicago, Ill Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 08.05.1998
Subjects
Deaths
Simpson, Alan
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Summary:Alan Simpson, an award-winning University of Chicago professor and dean who went on to become president of Vassar College in New York, died of pneumonia Tuesday in Lake Forest Hospital. A resident of Wilmette, he was 85. A native of England, Mr. Simpson was a graduate of Oxford University and a Commonwealth Fellow at Harvard University from 1935 to 1937. He began his teaching career at the University of Chicago in 1946 and was a professor of history and dean at U. of C. from 1959 through 1964, when he became president at Vassar. Mr. Simpson's presidency at Vassar was a challenging one, as the college was just beginning a debate on its historical mission as a highly selective all-women's college. He went into the job with a commitment to single-sex education, but he gradually changed his view after realizing it was becoming harder for Vassar to compete for the highest-quality students as a single-sex school, said Richard Wilson, a music professor at Vassar and former colleague of Mr. Simpson's.
ISSN:1085-6706