Bill W. Stacy, the founding president of California State University San Marcos, died Jan. 4 at age 85 in Cape Girardeau, Mo.
Stacy accepted the San Marcos post in September 1989 and began building the nation’s first new state university in more than 20 years.
CSUSM opened in rented office space in August 1990 with a dozen professors, nine majors and fewer than 450 students, all juniors and seniors. The university moved into new buildings at its current location two years later and continued to grow rapidly.
“It was a splendid thing to go to San Marcos,” Stacy told an interviewer in 2018 for a story at the online news site chattanoogan.com. “It was a school that the public demanded and built; there were a lot of people fighting for campus approval from the state Legislature.”
Stacy helped plan and obtain funding for the construction of the university’s buildings. He hired the faculty, assembled a curriculum and recruited students.
When Stacy left San Marcos in 1997 to return to his home state as chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Chatanooga, the San Marcos campus had almost 4,500 students and offered 19 bachelor’s degrees, 15 teaching credentials and nine master’s degrees. Today CSUSM has more than 16,000 students and more than 20 buildings on 300 acres.
“Dr. Stacy’s inspiring leadership as the first president of CSUSM paved the way for the university we are today – a model of student success, academic excellence and exemplary community engagement,” CSUSM President Ellen Neufeldt said in a written statement.
“I’m grateful for his vital contributions to our university and extend my deepest condolences to the Stacy family on behalf of everyone at CSUSM,” Neufeldt said
Born July 26, 1938, in Bristol, Tenn., Stacy moved with his family to Missouri in the early 1940s. He excelled in sports as a young man and attended Southeast Missouri State College on a football scholarship. After graduation he taught at the college and lobbied with others to change it from a college to a university, and then served as president of the university from 1979 to 1989 before leaving to help found CSUSM.
After his eight years at San Marcos, Stacy was at UT Chattanooga from 1997 to 2004. From there he went on to become heaster at Baylor School, a private boarding school in Chattanooga, until his retirement in 2009.
He continued to serve his community long after retirement, according to an obituary published Tuesday in the Southeast Missourian.
He was chair of the Greater Chattanooga United Way, secretary of the Memorial Hospital Foundation, a past president of his Rotary Club and served on the boards of at least three other organizations. He also was a frequent and valued participant in senior golf tournaments.
“Bill was a paragon of unquestionable character, moral conviction and the most humble example of man,” his obituary states. “He was forever grateful for the kindnesses and encouragement he received from a wide array of people. He made friends easily, was always fun to be around and was absolutely committed to bettering the lives of others.”
Stacy is survived by his wife of 34 years, Sue Stacy, an educator who taught at multiple institutions, including MiraCosta College, also by three children, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
