Ex-Stony Brook president John S. Toll dies

John S. Toll, who as Stony Brook University's president led it from a small SUNY component in 1965 to a major educational center with more than 17,000 students in 1978, died Friday in Bethesda, Md. He was 87.

His successor John H. Marburger said Friday: "I learned much from his insights about Stony Brook and its tremendous assets as a research university, which he, of course, deserves much credit for himself."

Dr. Samuel L. Stanley Jr., the current president, said: "He truly set the university on a march towards excellence, and with his focus on recruiting outstanding faculty, including Nobel laureates, he laid the foundation for Stony Brook's rapid ascent."

Born Oct. 24, 1923, in Denver, Toll earned a bachelor's in physics from Yale University in 1944, then served in the Navy during World War II.

He earned a doctorate in physics from Princeton University, where he helped establish Project Matterhorn, now the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He was head of the University of Maryland physics department when he was named president of Stony Brook.

From the beginning, he recruited world-class faculty to the then-1,600-student campus, including H. Bentley Glass, a top biologist who became academic vice president; Robert Lachman, former head of the Columbia University's economics department; and C.N. Yang, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

Toll also campaigned to increase funds for campus growth, bringing in a half-billion dollars during his tenure. He presided over the campus' growth at a time of student unrest during the Vietnam War era. Once, while he was giving a party for the university's 800 faculty members, hundreds of students staged a protest outside about closed courses and dormitory overcrowding.

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Toll defused the situation by inviting in the students, who'd demanded that he come outside. He simply said, "I think this is a good chance for the students and the faculty to discuss the problems that exist."

When he left Stony Brook in 1978 to head the University of Maryland, then-Suffolk County Executive John V.N. Klein said, "He charted the course of the university through its most difficult and turbulent period, and did it with an almost unbelievable patience and understanding."

Toll was a humble and selfless man who wanted only a hug and kiss each Christmas, said daughter Dacia Toll, 39, of New Haven, Conn. She shared his passion for education and founded Achievement First network of public charter schools. "I remember asking him for career advice," she said Saturday. "He said, 'I've always tried to do whatever I thought would have the greatest impact.' "

A Newsday editorial noted in 1978: "He'll be remembered fondly on the Island as a man who was sometimes rumpled in attire, usually unassuming in manner and always persistent in the pursuit of quality in the university he served so well."

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Toll also is survived by his wife, Deborah Ann Taintor Toll, of Bethesda; daughter Caroline Taintor Toll of Minneapolis; brother Daniel R. Toll of Chicago; and 2-year-old grandson John Toll Klaus.

A memorial service at the University of Maryland is being planned for the fall. With Ali Eaves