In Memoriam

William “Bill” Tingley

William Tingley
Photo: Marc Campos/Occidental College

William “Bill” Tingley, who served as director of admissions at Whitman College for 16 years, passed away on July 27, 2012. He was 71.

Bill received his B.A. and M.A. in political science from University of California, Davis. Tingley then served in Vietnam as a first lieutenant in Army Intelligence. He was awarded a Bronze Star. Following his military service, he was hired as director of financial aid at UC Santa Cruz, which launched a professional career in higher education that spanned 43 years. Bill started at Whitman in 1969 as assistant dean of admissions before being appointed director and chair of the college’s board of admissions in 1971. 

“I wanted to be just like him when I was a student,” said John Bogley ’85, Whitman’s vice president for development and college relations. “I thought he was such a remarkable man and leader. He’s the reason I ended up working at Whitman.”

Robert Skotheim, president emeritus, said Bill had an important leadership role at Whitman, as evidenced by the fact that he was the first head of admissions to become a member of the President’s Cabinet.

“Bill was responsible for transitioning Whitman into the modern age of student recruitment and the administration of financial aid,” said Skotheim, Whitman’s president from 1975 to 1988.

“He was an invaluable administrator who admired Whitman because the college represents an ideal balance of intellectual and academic seriousness with a modest, practical worldliness.”

After Whitman, Bill later went on to serve as Stanford’s associate dean of admission before moving on to Pitzer and then Occidental College, where he served as vice president for admission and financial aid until he retired in January 2010.

Bill is survived by Sally, his wife of 47 years, and children Steve, John and Kassie.

Richard “Dick” Stuart

Richard Stuart

Richard “Dick” Stuart, the Hollon Parker Professor of Economics and Business, Emeritus, passed away on August 14, 2012, at the age of 96.

Dick received his B.S. degree from Rhode Island State College and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Following service as a faculty member at the University of Maine, the University of Pennsylvania and Pomona College, in 1960, Dick accepted an appointment in the Department of Economics at Whitman College where he taught until his retirement in 1982.

During his 22 years at Whitman, Dick took a single full-year sabbatical leave in 1967-68 when he served as a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Tehran in Iran. At the close of that year, Dick wrote to Chester Maxey, president of Whitman College: “Seven years is not a long time of service at Whitman, but in that time I have come to feel that I am as welcome a member of the College as those who have served for four times as long. In that time I have developed a sense of love and emotion for the College that defies analysis.”

During his years at Whitman College, Dick’s exemplary record of service included a term as Chair of the Economics Department; as chair of an ad hoc committee on fringe benefits; as a member of the selection committee for the Truman Fellowship; and, as he indicated in his 1977 Annual Faculty Activity Report, as “coordinator (and janitor) for the Faculty Forum.” Dick played a key role in securing designation of the Anderson house on Boyer Avenue as what would in time come to be known as the Baker Faculty Center. Additionally, he served in multiple capacities beyond the confines of Whitman College, perhaps most notably in 1985 as the first man ever appointed to sit on the Board of Directors of Washington State’s League of Women Voters.

Dick made his greatest mark in his work as a teacher. Of particular note were his courses on public finance, money and banking, economic theory, and consumer economics. Especially later in his career, Dick became convinced that the study of economics could not be divorced from the study of politics; and, as such, he became an early proponent of interdisciplinary inquiry. Louis Perry, Whitman’s president in 1961, commended Dick for his “incisive, direct mind, an intellectual curiosity, an exceedingly high ability as a teacher, and a sincere desire to be objective, which keeps him from being swayed by the emotional currents of the day.”

Toward the time of his retirement, Dick was recognized in the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin for his prowess at distilling “Stuart’s Beer” in the basement of his home, where his spouse of many years, Peggy Metastasio, continues to reside.

Those wishing to honor the memory of Dick Stuart, and to continue his legacy of supporting the education of Whitman students, are invited to make a contribution to the Richard K. Stuart Scholarship via the Office of Development and College Relations at Whitman College.