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Richard Wall Lyman (October 18, 1923 – May 27, 2012), the seventh president of Stanford University, was an American educator, historian, and professor.

Biography

An historian of the British Labour Party, Lyman spent two years at the London School of Economics in 1951 and 1952, researching for his PhD on the first Labour Government. He spent the period 1954-1958 teaching at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1957 his PhD was published as a book, entitled The First Labour Government, 1924. He joined Stanford in 1958.

He served as the provost of Stanford between 1967 and 1970. He then served as president of the university from 1970 to 1980. During his tenure as provost and president, he confronted campus dissidents involved in protests against the Vietnam war and other social issues of the 1960s. In the spring of 1969, he called in law enforcement authorities to evict and arrest students who were occupying campus buildings and removing administrative files. In referring to his leadership during his tenure, both of his immediate successors as president of the university have said that "Dick Lyman saved Stanford."

Lyman was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971.

In 1983 he founded the Stanford Institute for International Studies and became its first director. He was the president of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1980 to 1988.

In 1998, Lyman was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Lyman earned his bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College and his master's degree and PhD from Harvard University. He was a Fulbright scholar at the London School of Economics from 1951 to 1952. He came to Stanford in 1958 as a professor in history.

The Richard W. Lyman Award was established in 2002 by the National Humanities Center in honor of Lyman. He posthumously won the 2011 Alumni Achievement Award from Hamden Hall Country Day School.

He married Jing (1925-2013) in 1947 and they have four children. Jing Lyman was herself very active in the university and supported the founding of the Center for Research on Women (now the Clayman Institute for Gender Studies) in 1974. She was a "leading national figure in initiatives promoting fairer housing, community development and women’s economic empowerment." His granddaughter is radio producer Tina Antolini.

The Lyman Graduate Residence built in 1997 on the west side of campus is named for Richard Lyman and the Jing Lyman Commons Building within it for his wife.

He died in 2012 of heart failure, aged 88.

Notes

1. "At the Hands of the Radicals". Stanford Magazine. 2009. Retrieved December 1, 2023.
2. Jaroslovsky, Rich (2012). "Man in the Middle". Stanford Magazine. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
3. "Richard W. Lyman, Stanford's seventh president, dead at 88". Stanford Report. May 27, 2012. Retrieved June 19, 2012.
4. "Stanford University under siege", Palo Alto Online, Palo Alto Centennial. Wednesday, April 13, 1994.
5. "At the Hands of the Radicals", Stanford Magazine. January–February, 2009.
6. "The Stanford Presidency," at Stanford on iTunes (iTunes U:Stanford:Campus Life:Stanford History-Video), Donald Kennedy at 19:30 mark of video; Gerhard Casper at 37:00 minute mark.
7. "Richard Wall Lyman". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2021-12-03.
8. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-12-03.
9. "Richard Lyman - FSI Stanford". Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford. Retrieved December 13, 2011.
10. The Lyman Award Archived 2007-02-08 at the Wayback Machine, National Humanities Center.
11. ^ "Meet Dr. Richard Lyman, Class of 1940, Recipient of the 2011 Alumni Achievement Award". 25 April 2011. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
12. "Jing Lyman: A pioneering campus leader takes another bow". Clayman Institute for Gender Studies. Archived from the original on October 1, 2011. Retrieved December 13, 2011.
13. Sullivan, Kathleen J. (November 21, 2013). "Jing Lyman, former 'first lady' of Stanford, dead at 88".
14. "Jing Lyman, 1925-2013", Times Higher Education, December 19, 2013.
15. "About Lyman". Stanford University. Retrieved December 13, 2011.
16. "Richard W. Lyman, Stanford's seventh president, dead at 88". Stanford Report. May 27, 2012. Retrieved June 19, 2012.

• 1923 births
• 2012 deaths
• American economists
• Harvard University alumni
• Presidents of Stanford University
• Provosts of Stanford University
• Swarthmore College alumni
• Stanford University Department of History faculty
• American historians
• Presidents of the Rockefeller Foundation
• Members of the American Philosophical Society
• Washington University in St. Louis faculty