Stanley O. Ikenberry, who at age 44 was named the youngest president in the University of Illinois history in 1979 and later returned to the presidency in an interim capacity, died Tuesday at age 90 in Boca Grande, Florida.
Decades after he traded a senior leadership position at Pennsylvania State University for Illinois, Ikenberry’s legacy remains strong on University of Illinois System campuses.
Federal funds for research nearly quadrupled in his first term in office, as did private gifts, grants and contracts. Ikenberry also led the University's first major capital campaign and a second campaign that raised more than $1.35 billion.
Under his leadership, the University of Illinois Chicago grew into the largest research university in the metropolitan area through the consolidation of the university’s Medical Center and Chicago Circle campuses. Urbana campus facilities developed during his tenure included Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
“President Ikenberry was a trailblazer as a University of Illinois president and led through a period of robust growth and the development of so much of what that we know now as the modern U of I System,” current U of I System President Tim Killeen said. “He was also a man of unquestioned character and deep loyalty, both of which he demonstrated when he returned as interim president, and a patient and wise mentor to me when I joined the system.
“Stan and his wife, Judy, had a deep impact based on their devotion to the university system even well beyond the many years they spent here, and that is apparent to this day.”
The founding of the Beckman Institute was “arguably the most important thing that happened on the Urbana-Champaign campus during the latter part of the 20th century,” Ikenberry said in 2022, when the Ikenberrys made a significant financial gift to the Beckman Café Renovation fund. “It lifted the campus to a whole new level and gave us a new national stature. It changed the physical face of the campus and the culture of the campus.”
Ikenberry also worked to improve the quality and diversity of the student body with the establishment of the President’s Award Program for high-achieving, underrepresented students admitted to the University of Illinois.
After his resignation in 1995, Ikenberry became the 10th president of the American Council of Education, as well as president of the board of overseers at TIAA-CREF, the leading retirement system for college and university employees in the United States.
He also held positions in the College of Education at Urbana-Champaign and the U of I System’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs. In 2008, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees honored his contributions by designating the Urbana-Champaign campus’ new dining hall and residence halls complex the Stanley O. Ikenberry Commons.
“At the heart of it, what makes the university really are the young people, and to be affiliated with that is a great honor,” Ikenberry told trustees when they notified him by telephone of the naming honor.
In 1995, he was awarded emeritus president and regent professor status by the board of trustees, and in 1998 he received the University’s Distinguished Service Medallion for his devotion to the U of I and American higher education.
Ikenberry returned to the presidency in early 2010 to serve in an interim capacity that bridged from the resignation of President B. Joseph White to the hiring of President Michael J. Hogan. Facing a significant state and system budget crisis during that period, the working group he appointed to conduct a broad review of the university’s administrative structure and service delivery brought forward 43 recommendations for cost savings across the university.
He stepped down as president on June 30, 2010, and remained affiliated with the National Institute of Learning Outcome Assessment, based in Champaign.
Born in Lamar, Colorado, Ikenberry earned an undergraduate degree from Shepherd College in West Virgina, where his father was president.
“He lived and breathed the university life, almost from the day he was born,” his son David Ikenberry said.
Stanley Ikenberry received master’s and doctoral degrees from Michigan State University. He was dean of the College of Human Resources and Education at West Virginia University before serving as senior vice president at Pennsylvania State University and a professor in the Pennsylvania State Center for the Study of Higher Education.
An April 26 memorial service at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Boca Grande will be accessible online.
