Alexander Heard, 92, Led Vanderbilt as Chancellor and Served Presidents

Alexander Heard, 92, a chancellor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville during tumultuous times on campuses across the nation and an education adviser to three U.S. presidents, died July 24 at his home in Nashville of complications from Alzheimer's disease.

Dr. Heard was a scholar of the U.S. election process and the American presidency and dean of the graduate school at the University of North Carolina before being named Vanderbilt's fifth chancellor in 1963. As chancellor for nearly 20 years, his commitment to openness and dialogue helped keep Vanderbilt relatively calm, even as other colleges and universities were experiencing riots, vandalism and violent protests.

"Alex was the ultimate intellectual who was blessed with an overdose of common sense," John Seigenthaler, former editor and publisher of the Nashville Tennessean, told the newspaper he once headed. "As a result, he led Vanderbilt through difficult days of academic upheaval with character and courage and always a subtle sense of humor."

From early in his administration, he kept lines of communication open by holding quiet, regular meetings with student leaders, including outspoken campus radicals. With his encouragement, Vanderbilt students in 1964 began the Impact Symposium, now one of the longest-running student-operated speakers series in the nation. Campus speakers included both black-power advocate Stokely Carmichael and Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama.

"During his time as chancellor, he believed, notwithstanding the turmoil of the Vietnam era, that the most important issue this country faced was civil rights," said his son, Stephen Heard, a Nashville lawyer.

During the 1960s and 1970s, he served on several political and education commissions for presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. He also served as chairman of the board of the Ford Foundation in 1972.

Dr. Heard retired as chancellor in 1982 to accept an offer from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to head a three-year study on the presidential election process. He subsequently wrote two books on the subject, "Presidential Selection," with Michael Nelson (1987), and "Made in America -- Improving the Nomination and Election of Presidents" (1991).

George Alexander Heard was born in Savannah, Ga., on March 14, 1917. After receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina in 1938, he worked in several government agencies, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration, the War Department and the State Department.

From 1941 to 1943, he was vice consul at the American Embassy in Quito, Ecuador. During World War II, he served on active duty in the Pacific as a Navy Reserve officer.

He decided on a career in academia, instead of government service, when he returned to civilian life. He received his master's degree in 1948 and his doctorate in 1951, both from Columbia University.

He assisted V.O. Key Jr. at the University of Alabama in a now-classic three-year study of Southern politics funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and was co-author of "Southern Politics in State and Nation," the 1949 book that resulted from the study.

He returned to his alma mater, the University of North Carolina, as an associate professor of political science in 1950 and became full professor in 1952. He revised his dissertation into the book "A Two-Party South?" (1952), in which he predicted the early emergence of a two-party system in the region.

Survivors include his wife of 60 years, the former Jean Keller; four children, Stephen Heard, Christopher Heard and Cornelia Heard, all of Nashville, and Frank Heard of Boca Raton, Fla.; and two grandchildren.

-- Joe Holley