The last person who ever expected Jack Peltason to be the head of a major university, let alone two of them, may have been Peltason himself.
Peltason, who died March 21 at age 91, was a renowned political scientist and constitutional scholar and author who already had established an academic reputation by the time he was named the Urbana campus's first chancellor in 1967.
He also had proved his leadership ability after arriving as a professor in 1951, serving as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences from 1960-64, and then at the University of California at Irvine as the vice chancellor for academic affairs before returning to Illinois.
But by all accounts, he did not exude power.
Bespectacled and bookish, he seemed most comfortable in the confines of a secluded office working on political science books with straightforward titles such as "Understanding the Constitution" and "Government of the People," or at home with his wife, Suzanne, (they were married for 68 years and she survives) and their three children.
He rode his bike to work, an advocate for community bike trails long before cycling became accepted as an adult pastime, and he waved to anyone he recognized along the way.
His television habits, he admitted in a 1967 interview, included public programming, professional football and one guilty pleasure - the weekly show "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour."
"He had this light approach, and he was always so warm to everybody," said Michelle Thompson, a 20-year secretary for the U. of I. Board of Trustees, whose first campus job included an interview with Peltason for the university's director of affirmative action position. "He had a great sense of humor and he used himself as the butt of the joke."
She said it was not unusual for one to stop by the chancellor's office and find him working on an academic manuscript.
"He was very low-key but he would absolutely become riveted to a task," she said. "He would get things to change because it was like a good friend asking."
His nickname, "Boy Dean," was picked up after his appointment, when he answered the phone using the title - only to find the person on the other end was a reporter from the Chicago Tribune.
While others applied to be LAS dean, Peltason, 36 years old at the time, hadn't considered being selected and was making plans for a sabbatical in England.
"It just never entered my mind as a possibility," he was quoted as saying in a 1995 News-Gazette article.
He was not the most captivating of speakers either, said Stanley O. Ikenberry, who served as U. of I. president from 1979 to 1995, returning as interim president in 2010.
But his self-deprecating, sometimes irreverent sense of humor kept audiences listening.
"He was a great communicator, which in the end, is what counts," Ikenberry said, adding they kept a friendship for years after Peltason left the U. of I.
"He often scuffed and stuttered (when he spoke)," Ikenberry said, "but at the same time he was sharp, sometimes eloquent and always to the point. He was authentic, he generated trust and was willing to make tough, sometimes unpopular decisions."
Honesty was perhaps the most important asset Peltason could have brought to campus during the civil unrest of the 1960s.
His first major assignment was to help President David Dodds Henry to incorporate the aspirations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into a successful campus initiative.
The result was the Special Education Opportunities Program, or "Project 500" as it was dubbed, which sought to identify and recruit a group of 568 "low-income students of color," mostly African-Americans, for integration on the Urbana campus.
Though it tripled the number of African-Americans on campus, it was not a runaway success, admits Clarence Shelley, who was brought in to the dean of students office in 1968 to help implement elements of the SEOP.
In fact, one of the most memorable moments was when a large group of the program's students filled the Illini Union's south lounge demanding better living conditions and the level of financial aid that had been promised to them.
The protest ended when nearly 250 students were subsequently arrested and transported by police for being at the Union past midnight.
"There was a lot to do, and there was pressure from all sources," Shelley said. All of them - students, parents, community people, state legislators - urged Peltason to see their side.
In retrospect, Shelley said, Project 500 did not go nearly as smoothly as had been hoped, but it was a foundation upon which the university kept building.
"(Peltason) often would say, 'I do not know the best way to do this, but we're going to do it,'" he said. "It was apparent that he put great value on this work, and he had the full support of President Henry."
Shelley said the main problem with the implementation of Project 500 was that there was very little in place beforehand to help the minority students make the transition.
It didn't take long for Shelley to realize that Peltason genuinely believed in what the university was trying to accomplish, even though it was turning out to be a difficult road.
"He was a political scientist who was the chancellor," Shelley said. "He believed the system should work for the greater good, that it was our obligation to make it work."
On the night of the Union incident, Shelley said he and other Peltason advisers had to "almost tie him to his chair to keep from going down there. I thought he was awfully naive, but he felt it was a risk worth taking to settle things down.
"So many things at that time were in such upheaval, we had a hard time understanding what it was the students really wanted," Shelley said. "Maybe his greatest virtue was the sense of not knowing everything, but let's see how far we can go."
Peltason instituted a series of talks with students to discuss whatever was on their minds. Just about any invitation, from a residence hall or a fraternity, was accepted.
"Frequently I would say, 'What am I doing here? I'm just a college professor,'" he said in a 1975 interview. "But you stay because you find that things you value very deeply are in jeopardy and you feel a sense of responsibility."
The Peltason touch wasn't limited to the U. of I.
In 1979, Peltason, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, and a graduate of the University of Missouri at Columbia, was picked to head the American Council on Education. In 1984, he was appointed chancellor of the University of California at Irvine before becoming president of the state system in 1992.
The obituary in the Los Angeles Times said, despite critics opposed to the 69-year-old's appointment, Peltason handled it with his usual wit in his acceptance speech.
"There has been some concern about ... a generation gap," he said. "I think that concern is exaggerated. I do not have any trouble working with older people."
Ikenberry said Peltason's impact at the U. of I. is still being felt.
"He invented the role," said Ikenberry. "He led the campus during a turbulent, difficult time of student unrest. He was a true academic administrator, that is, an academic first who learned to lead and administer the campus."
Shelley said Peltason always kept the university's mission in sharp focus.
"He taught me how important it is to trust the students to do the right thing and to always keep in touch with the faculty," he said. "There may be conflict during the process, but conflict is not always a bad thing."
Thompson said Peltason went out of his way to stop and say hello when he returned to speak on campus.
"He was an absolute expert at forming and maintaining relationships. It was who he was."