Thomas Duckett Boyd was an American educator. He is regarded for his services as president of the National Association of State Universities, 1919-20, and as president of the National Association of Land-Grant Colleges, 1921-22.
Background
Thomas Duckett Boyd was was born on January 20, 1854, in Wytheville, Virginia and was the ninth of ten children of Thomas Jefferson and Minerva Anne (French) Boyd.
His father, descended from noble Scottish lineage of the thirteenth century through John Boyd, who settled in Maryland some four hundred years later, received a law degree at the University of Virginia in 1827, served as a member of the town council, the state legislature, the Virginia Board of Public Works, and the Commissary Department of the Confederacy.
Education
After studying in Howard Shriver's private school at Wytheville until he was fourteen, Thomas enrolled as a cadet at the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy, where his brother, David French Boyd, was superintendent and later president.
In 1870, the Seminary became the Louisiana State University.
Graduating in 1872 with the degree of A. M. , Boyd devoted a year to surveying and reading law, and then, at the age of nineteen, was appointed an adjunct professor of mathematics at his alma mater.
He had been awarded an honorary degree of LL. D. by Tulane in 1897.
Career
During the next fifteen years after his graduation, Boyd served the university in several capacities: as commandant of cadets, professor of drawing, professor of English and instructor in the preparatory department, professor of history and English literature, and acting president.
In 1888, Boyd resigned his professorship to accept the presidency of the Louisiana State Normal School, a position he held for eight years. He harmonized a discordant faculty, raised standards of admission and graduation, expanded the curriculum, developed teachers' institutes, and was instrumental in founding the Louisiana Educator and the Louisiana School Review.
Called to the presidency of Louisiana State University in 1896, he contributed to its development from a faculty of 19, an enrollment of 140 cadets, and an annual appropriation limited constitutionally to $10, 000, into a creditable institution with half a dozen colleges, a faculty of 151, a student body of 1, 800, and a maintenance fund of $1, 000, 000.
His greatest battle was a contest with Tulane University in 1906 which prevented that institution from receiving state aid and therefore from becoming a second state university; his greatest innovation the admission of women students, 1904-05; his greatest achievement the building of a new university in the early nineteen twenties. Upon his retirement in 1927, he was made president emeritus.
He died in his seventy-ninth year, following a heart attack.
Achievements
Membership
Thomas Boyd was a member of the National Association of State Universities and of the National Association of Land-Grant Colleges.
Personality
Dignified and cultured, Boyd was gifted with a sense of humor, systematic habits, and fairness in counseling with faculty and students.
Connections
Thomas Duckett Boyd was married on March 15, 1882, to Annie Foules Fuqua of Baton Rouge, by whom he had four sons and four daughters. They had five children: Thomas Duckett, Jr. , Overton, Minerva, Annie, and Agnes.