Robert J. Bruce, president emeritus of Widener University, has died at 86
He worked at the school for 25 years, the last 20 as its president, and “helped shape the present and future of education at all levels,” former colleagues said.
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Robert J. Bruce, 86, of Newtown Square, president emeritus of Widener University, longtime college administrator, former history teacher, mentor, and volunteer, died Friday, April 19, of heart failure at White Horse Village retirement community.
President Bruce joined Widener in 1975 as vice president of development. He became president in 1981 and oversaw the school’s transition from a struggling small college in Chester to an expanding regional university with three campuses before retiring in 2001.
Former colleagues called him a financial visionary, and Widener officials said he was largely responsible for the school’s “unparalleled expansion and financial stability” in the 1980s and ‘90s. He championed new applied graduate programs to offset flat undergraduate enrollment, and the school added master’s and doctorate degrees in nursing, business, hospitality, engineering, education, social work, and psychology.
President Bruce told The Inquirer in 2001: “We had to answer the question: ‘What is a Widener?’ … We had to establish a niche within the Greater Philadelphia area as a quality institution.”
He opened a new law school campus in Harrisburg, reorganized the faculty governance structure, and rearranged the core academic units into eight schools and colleges. Many of his expansion and restructuring initiatives were adopted later by other universities around the country.
He also tripled the size of the school’s annual operating budget, tripled its endowment to $42 million, and supervised a campus building investment of more than $100 million in Chester and Wilmington. Widener named its Robert J. Bruce Graduate Center in his honor, and he created the school’s Robert J. and Judith G. Bruce Scholarship.
Widener officials and alumni called President Bruce a “dynamic, philanthropic, and courageous leader.” Joseph DiAngelo, dean of the Haub School of Business at St. Joseph’s University and a former colleague at Widener, said: “He is a legend in higher education.”
Before Widener, he was a development officer at Colby College in Maine, vice president for development and acting president at Bard College in New York, and vice president for university relations at Clark University in Massachusetts. Former students called him a “true gentleman and a class act” and “an amazing leader and a gentle soul” in online tributes.
He mentored other administrators, served as chairman of the National Association of the Independent Colleges and Universities, and was a member of the NCAA Presidents Commission on innovation. He also sat on a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps national subcommittee and received what is now the Meritorious Public Service Medal from the Army in 2000.
He was on several boards and the one-time board chairman of the Crozer-Chester Medical Center. He helped establish the Foundation for Delaware County in 2016 and earned several awards for service. In 2008, he authored Acting on Promise, Reflections of a University President, and it received several glowing reviews.
In a tribute, his family said he was “an eternally upbeat, curious, caring, person with seemingly boundless energy.”
Robert James Bruce was born Aug. 12, 1937, in Brookline, Mass. He played football in high school and college, and earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Colby in 1959 and a master’s degree in history at the University of Massachusetts in 1964.
He taught history to high school and college preparatory students before joining Colby in 1965, and earned three honorary doctorates, including in 1992 from Widener. He spent 1964 in Britain with his family as a Fulbright Scholar.
He met Judith Garland at Colby, and they married in 1959, and later endowed a scholarship fund at the college. They had daughter Kim and son Scott, and lived locally in Wallingford, West Chester, and Newtown Square. His wife died in 2019.
President Bruce was gregarious and friendly. He liked to read, travel and ski, and “never said anything negative about anyone,” his son said.
He rarely missed an event that involved his children and grandchildren, and the family spent memorable summers at their home in Maine. “Dad was our biggest advocate in all that we did in our lives,” his daughter said. “Family was paramount in his beliefs.”
He embraced his Scottish heritage and sat on boards and committees at the St. Andrew’s Society of Philadelphia. He was a board member and community leader at White Horse Village, and friends there said he left “a legacy of dedication and commitment.”
His son said: “He was a fantastic dad.”
In addition to his children, President Bruce is survived by seven grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, a sister, and other relatives.
Services are to be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, May 2, at St. Francis-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, 689 Sugartown Rd., Malvern, Pa. 19355.
Donations in his name may be made to the Robert J. Bruce and Judith G. Bruce Endowed Scholarship Fund at Colby College, Office of Advancement, 4000 Mayflower Hill Dr., Waterville, Maine 04901; and the Foundation for Delaware County, 200 E. State St., Suite 304, Media, Pa. 19063.