Just days before its Commencement, Endicott College released news of the passing of its president, Richard “Dick” Wylie, 77, a former Lesley administrator.
Lesley’s vice president and dean of graduate studies from 1978 to 1987, Wylie is remembered by colleagues as charismatic, innovative and of high moral character.
Professor Emeritus George Hein remembers a trip to Germany in the early 1980s, as Wylie was considering expanding Lesley’s international connections with a university there. Hein, who speaks German and also served as a translator, had his misgivings: The school was unaccredited and generally not of Lesley’s caliber.
“I thought they weren’t reputable,” Hein says. Then, after visiting a school administrator’s mountain hunting lodge, Wylie shared Hein’s hunch.
“There was a large wall, filled with guns,” Hein recalls. “Dick just took one look at that — he was from a pacifist family” and any thoughts of a potentially advantageous deal were put to rest.
Wylie’s hewing to principle impressed Hein. “He had a very strong moral compass,” Hein says.
But Wylie had a yen for growth and innovation, says University Professor Shaun McNiff who, like Hein, was on the search committee for the position Wylie eventually filled.
McNiff, progenitor of the expressive therapies discipline at Lesley, credits Wylie with surges in the graduate program — largely fueled by off-campus, national programs — during former President Margaret McKenna’s tenure.
“He had huge success at Lesley,” McNiff says, which augured Wylie’s impact on Endicott, including growth from a two-year, all-women’s school to a thriving, largely business-oriented four-year institution on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
“Look at the outcomes,” McNiff says. “He was the one who launched doctoral education at Lesley. He was the key figure that moved toward the approval of the doctorates in education and expressive therapies.
McNiff says Wylie also spurred the growth of adult learning here, cannily hiring faculty from the Goddard College (pioneers of low-residency, adult-degree programs in the 1970s), as well as enrolling adult students in graduate programs, for mutual improvement.
“It exploded!” McNiff enthuses.
McNiff said Wylie also helped drive international education and expressive therapies at Lesley.
“The international growth of expressive therapies happened under him,” says McNiff. “He went with me to Israel, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden” to launch or support programs there. Though expressive therapies started prior to Wylie’s arrival, “He just took things to another level,” McNiff adds.
Professor Emerita Margery Staman Miller also points to Wylie’s contribution to Lesley.
“Dick Wylie was an innovator and visionary who shaped much of what was and what is graduate education at Lesley University today,” she says. “He believed in people and their ideas and fostered them.”
Professor Emerita Arlyn Roffman, founding director of our Threshold Program, met Wylie when she was a “newly minted Ph.D.” and an assistant professor in the Special Education Division.
“When I approached him with a proposal to create an innovative program model for young adults with severe learning disabilities — a population that was sorely underserved at that time — he supported my vision and let me run with it,” Roffman says. “He remained a true champion of Threshold for the remainder of his years at Lesley, and a true friend to me throughout my 15 years as Threshold’s founding director.”
Professor Vivien Marcow Speiser, director of our Institute for Arts and Health, remembers Wylie as a “larger-than-life, charismatic person with a great innovative and entrepreneurial spirit.”
In addition, without Wylie’s “wise and feisty leadership,” Lesley’s reach would be less extensive, Speiser says.
As assistant dean in the Institute for Arts and Human Development (1983-1987), she worked with Wylie and McNiff to expand the Creative Arts in Learning Program “from a few small cohorts of students, to close to 1,600 students across the country,” she says. “Lesley’s reach across the country and around the world is attributable to Dick’s foresight, encouragement and support.”
Hein similarly recalls Wylie as “supportive,” adding, “I grew through working with him.”
Lesley grew, as well.
“He was always tuning into where society was going and what the needs are, and creating the infrastructure to meet them, and that’s what he did at Lesley,” McNiff says.
“He was probably one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, when it comes to higher-education dynamics. He had a genius for working with people.”
(Photo of Dick Wylie courtesy of Endicott College.)