Alexander Heard, Former Vanderbilt U. Chancellor, Dies at 92

Alexander Heard, who served as chancellor of Vanderbilt University from 1963 to 1982 and advised three U.S. presidents on a variety of topics, has died at 92 after a long illness, according to the university.

Mr. Heard, a political scientist by training, is remembered for having guided Vanderbilt calmly through the tumultuous, protest-filled era of the Vietnam War without losing the respect of the university’s students. He met regularly with students on all sides of issues and staunchly defended the university’s obligation to present an open forum for ideas of all types—even when students invited the black-power advocate Stokely Carmichael to speak on the campus in 1967. Mr. Heard was widely criticized in Nashville for permitting the talk to go forward when riots broke out in the aftermath of the speech.

Mr. Heard is also remembered for having advanced Vanderbilt’s reputation on a number of fronts—adding buildings and graduate schools to the campus and succeeding in an effort to place the first woman on the university’s governing board. He also served as president of the Ford Foundation, and accepted appointments by Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon to blue-ribbon panels.