James Walker, the first black to serve as president of the two-campus, 35,000-student Southern Illinois University system, died Sunday after a long bout with prostate cancer. He was 64.
Walker, who came to SIU from the president’s job at Middle Tennessee State University in 2000, died at his home, said David Gross, an SIU spokesman.
In November, the university’s Board of Trustees tapped former congressman Glenn Poshard to succeed Walker as chief executive of the university system, which has an annual budget of roughly $665 million. Poshard took the system’s helm Jan. 1.
Under Walker’s watch, SIU got millions of dollars in federal research grants involving coal, agriculture, biofuels, health care and education. Walker also oversaw various big-money construction projects, including the $40 million renovation of the Carbondale campus’ Morris Library and work toward the university’s $21 million Cancer Institute planned in Springfield.
Walker spent more than three decades in higher education, his first job more than three decades ago as an assistant professor of education at SIU in Edwardsville.
Before serving as Middle Tennessee State’s president for about a decade, Walker was provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Northern Colorado.
