Boyd’s leadership also left mark in Chicago

There have been many moving tributes to Willard “Sandy” Boyd, the former president of the University of Iowa. But none have done more than mention his 15 years — 1981-1996 — as the pathbreaking president of the Field Museum in Chicago, or explained that when millions of people now drive down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, we owe that route to Sandy.

For many years he had failed to get the Iowa Avenue Bridge closed to traffic in order to create a traffic-free campus. But in 1991 he persuaded the Board of Aldermen to move Lake Shore Drive so that it does not interrupt the park between the museum, the planetarium and the aquarium, creating the “museum campus” of which Chicagoans are justifiably proud and which we tourists enjoy.

Sandy was a leader in bringing people who had rarely gone to museums into the Field (for which he was awarded one of the first of what is now called the National Humanities Medal), and a pioneer in engaging aboriginal peoples with the museum exhibitions of their artifacts. His remarkable leadership set a national example.

Linda Kerber

Iowa City