About Ernest L. Boyer

 

Ernest L. Boyer, Sr.

A Leader of Educators, An Educator of Leaders

1928 - 1995

Ernest Boyer himself often described his childhood as stimulating, with friends and softball and creative play. He spent his early years in the public schools of Dayton, where he learned a love of language, including what he always liked to call the languages of music and the arts. He then traveled to Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, to begin a life of study and service.

 

At the small but spirited college, Boyer continued to develop the intellectual enthusiasm and moral grounding that would later inspire his campaigns on behalf of education and school reform. He solidified his commitment to good works and helping others, and believed such a commitment was a crucial ingredient of education at every level. At Messiah, he also met his future wife and the mother of his four children, Kathryn Garis Tyson. And in subsequent years, he would return to Messiah to serve as chairman and as a member of its board of trustees.

 

After two years at Messiah, Boyer earned a bachelor of arts degree at Greenville College in Illinois. It was there, as a star of the college debating team, that he honed his verbal skills. He learned to create clear, concise language with clever juxtaposition of phrases, a skill which later became his trademark.

 

In 1950, he began graduate studies at Ohio State University, then moved west to the University of Southern California, where he earned the master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees in 1956. Boyer served a post­doctoral fellowship in medical audiology at the University of Iowa Hospital, and later continued his formal studies as a Distinguished Fulbright Scholar in India and Chile and as a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University.

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