William Glenn Terrell Jr. (May 24, 1920 – August 30, 2013) was an American

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

and administrator. He was the president of

Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant uni ...

in Pullman from 1967 to 1985.

Early life and education

Born in

Tallahassee, Florida Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2020, the populatio ...

, Terrell was the son of William Glenn Terrell and Esther Collins Terrell. Father and son shared the full name William Glenn Terrell, and both used Glenn as their given name in their professional and personal lives. The elder served 41 years as a justice of the Florida Supreme Court. The younger Glenn Terrell attended Davidson College in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

for his bachelor's degree in political science, awarded in 1942. Terrell served in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, and saw action at the D-Day invasion at Normandy and the

Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in ...

. He was discharged from the military as a captain and then received his master's degree in psychology from Florida State University in 1948, and his doctorate in developmental psychology from the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 col ...

in 1952.

Career

Terrell began his academic career as a psychology instructor at Florida State and rose to associate professor before he moved to the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...

in 1955.Glenn Terrell, University of Iowa Distinguished Alumni Award, 1985
/ref> He was appointed dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the University of Illinois ...

in 1963, becoming dean of faculties there in 1965. He was selected by the Board of Regents as the seventh president of Washington State University in and began his duties July 1, succeeding C. Clement French (and interim president Wallis Beasley). Terrell led WSU during a period of substantial growth in several aspects of the institution. Enrollment increased 50%, from 11,000 students in to 16,500 in the academic year in which he retired. Both the 50,000th graduate (1971) and the 100,000th graduate (1983) received their diplomas from President Terrell. Funding for research through grants and contracts grew from $11 million in 1965-67 period to $68.5 million in 1983-85, reflecting the university's increased emphasis on faculty research and scholarship during the Terrell years.

Recognition

In 1985, the year Terrell completed his service as WSU's president, he was honored by the University of Iowa with its Distinguished Alumni Award. He was recognized for the transformation of WSU, a predominantly undergraduate state college, into a comprehensive public research university. He was succeeded at WSU by Samuel H. Smith. Also in that year, Washington State University recognized his many contributions to the institution by establishing the Glenn Terrell Scholarship Endowment and naming the mall at the heart of the Pullman campus the Glenn Terrell Friendship Mall. In April 2006, WSU honored the president emeritus by dedicating the new humanities and social sciences library the Glenn Terrell Library. The building is connected to the earlier Holland Library, leading to a formal designation for the complex as the Holland and Terrell Libraries. He died at age 93 at his home in Sequim on the

Olympic Peninsula The Olympic Peninsula is a large arm of land in western Washington that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle, and contains Olympic National Park. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and th ...

in August 2013.

Family

In the late 1880s, Terrell's grandparents, Rev. William Henry Terrell and Lizzie Crawford Terrell, moved from

Daleville, Mississippi Daleville is an unincorporated community along Mississippi Highway 39 in North Lauderdale County, Mississippi, United States. It has a post office with the ZIP code 39326. The settlement is named for Samuel Dale, Lauderdale County's first repre ...

, to Bushnell, Florida, in Sumter County, north of Tampa. W. H. Terrell was the pastor of the original Bushnell Presbyterian Church, while Lizzie taught children in her home and then at the first school there. With W.H. and Lizzie were their sons, William Glenn Terrell and W. C. Ross Terrell, and their daughters, Maggie, Hattie and Mary, all born in Mississippi, per the 1900 census. Son Glenn was first a teacher, then a lawyer, and then the longest-serving justice of the Florida Supreme Court; he served 41 years and died in 1964 at age 86, a day after announcing his upcoming retirement.

References

External links

Official Profile as a Washington State University Past President
{{DEFAULTSORT:Terrell, Glenn 1920 births 2013 deaths Presidents of Washington State University Davidson College alumni Florida State University alumni University of Iowa alumni People from Tallahassee, Florida