Dr. John L. Blackburn, Long-Time UA Administrator and Civic Leader, Dies

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. John L. Blackburn, a veteran administrator at The University of Alabama and a prominent civic leader, died July 3, 2009, in Tuscaloosa.  He was 84.

Recruited to the University in 1956 as assistant dean of men, John Blackburn rose through administrative ranks, holding positions as dean of men, dean for student development and vice president for educational development.  Among benchmarks of his distinguished career at the Capstone was the central role he played in the peaceful desegregation of the University.  Working diligently with student leaders, faculty and fellow administrators, Blackburn is credited with helping assure the successful enrollment of Vivian Malone and James Hood on June 11, 1963.

The University recognized his tenure of service by establishing the Blackburn Institute in his honor in 1995. An acclaimed leadership development program, the institute links state leaders in business and public service with outstanding UA students and Blackburn fellows.  The Blackburn Institute has become a thriving global network of leaders with a shared commitment to achieving the state of Alabama’s full potential.

“Dr. Blackburn was a highly respected educator who helped lead The University of Alabama through some of its most challenging and important times. While he will be greatly missed, we are pleased that his legacy will live on through the Blackburn Institute,” said UA President Robert E. Witt.

Blackburn was a native of Malta Bend, Missouri. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Missouri Valley College, his master’s degree in education from the University of Colorado and his doctorate in higher education management from Florida State University.

Blackburn joined UA as assistant dean of men in 1956. He was named dean of men in 1958 and the University’s first dean for student development in 1968. Blackburn spent almost 10 years, from 1969-1978, at the University of Denver, serving first as vice chancellor for student affairs and later as vice chancellor for university resources. He returned to the Capstone as vice president for educational development in 1978, leading the University’s fund-raising and alumni activities until his retirement in 1990.

Family friend and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice remembers Blackburn as “a giant in the lives of many, including my own.”

“As one of my father’s closest friends and mentors, Dr. Blackburn had a lasting impression on my father as a fellow college administrator in Tuscaloosa and later at the University of Denver.  Known as a man with conviction, Dr. Blackburn was constantly trying to make the communities he lived in, and the college campuses he worked on, better, more fair and ethical places. Dr. Blackburn’s leadership, vision and commitment to education opened countless doors and created limitless opportunities for many of his students,” Rice said.

“When the roll is called of the legendary, iconic figures of UA’s 20^th century faculty and staff, John L. Blackburn’s name will be right there alongside Hudson Strode and Bear Bryant,” said Dr. Culpepper Clark.  “Like them he was a teacher and molder of students, only Blackburn did it among a cadre of students who confronted the most profound social transformation of the century, civil rights, and enabled those students to become leaders, not mere witnesses to history.” A long-time administrator at UA and now dean of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, Clark is the author of “The Schoolhouse Door: Segregation’s Last Stand at the University of Alabama,” the historical account of the desegregation of the University.

Author Winston Groom, a UA alumnus, calls Blackburn “a truly remarkable man.”

“He was smart, selfless, fair, honest, and he didn’t view public service as a business, but as a way to give of his talents to young people,” Groom said. “John was an institution within an institution that he was devoted to – The University of Alabama. At a school so large, John tried, and largely succeeded, in establishing a personal relationship with as many students as possible.”

After his retirement, Blackburn established and served as president of Blackburn Educational Technologies, providing consulting services to colleges and universities throughout the U.S. He served as president of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), and twice as president of the National Association of University Administrators.

“John was truly a legend in his own time within NASPA,” said Gwendolyn Dungy, NASPA executive director. “When he attended the NASPA conference, it’s as if he were a human magnet. The old-time friends and colleagues, the mid-level professionals he had mentored, and the new professionals and graduate students who had heard of him all wanted to be in his presence.”

Blackburn served as president of Alpha Sigma Phi, a national social fraternity, and he was a member of Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honor society. He was a member of Rotary International and served as president of the Tuscaloosa Rotary Club.

In1976 he was appointed by President Gerald Ford to serve on the National Advisory Committee on Extension and Continuing Education.  During his tenure as Cabinet Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Dr. David Mathews appointed Blackburn to serve as a consultant to the College Intern Program.

Now president and chief executive officer of the Kettering Foundation, Dr. Mathews remembers Blackburn’s key role in the desegregation of the University this way: “Dean Blackburn was as responsible as anyone for successfully opening the door to integration that Governor Wallace felt obliged to block in 1963.  John L. tirelessly built a coalition of students and student organizations that worked in league with faculty and administration to ensure that The University of Alabama would serve all Alabamians.

“John L., and his wife Gloria, have been at the center of an intellectually lively, socially progressive, personally warm community of students, faculty and alumni that welcomed distinguished artists, scholars, and political leaders from around the world. Their living room has been an incubator for grand visions and practical strategies,” Mathews said.

That incubator continues in the Blackburn Institute. The institute is a leadership development organization affiliated with UA’s division of student affairs and supported through private donations. The institute fosters Blackburn’s belief that people link strategic actions through the generations for progressive and ethical change. Each year, approximately 25 Blackburn students are selected from all areas of the University’s student body following a faculty nomination and interview process. Blackburn fellows (both students and alumni) explore ethical leadership through sponsored programs, deliberative discussions and statewide travel. Blackburn himself described membership in the institute as “not only an honor but a lifetime commitment to becoming a change agent in one’s community.”

The Blackburn Institute hosts the Gloria and John L. Blackburn Academic Symposium, the Frank Nix Lecture, the Burt Jones Travel Experience, the D. Ray Pate Dinner, the Protective Life Government Experience, and the Don and Barbara “Bobbie” Siegel Endowed Scholarship for the promotion of diversity and inclusion in honor of John L. Blackburn and Robert E. Witt. 

In 2008 Blackburn was named a Pillar of West Alabama and in 2009 he was awarded the Rotary Rose. He was a member of First Presbyterian Church of Tuscaloosa. Blackburn is survived by his wife, Gloria Bullington Blackburn, his daughter and son-in-law, Holly and Harry M. Piper III, and two grandsons.

A memorial service will be held Tuesday, July 7, at 3 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Tuscaloosa.  It will follow a family burial service at Evergreen Cemetery in Tuscaloosa at 2 p.m.  Plans for a celebratory remembrance of the life of Dr. Blackburn will be announced at a later date by The University of Alabama and the Blackburn Institute.