Willard L. Boyd

Willard Lee Boyd (March 29, 1927 – December 13, 2022) was an American legal scholar, academic administrator and president of the University of Iowa and Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.

[2] In 1969, Boyd succeeded Howard Bowen as the fifteenth President of The University of Iowa.

[3] During Boyd's presidency, the athletic department hired three of the most successful coaches in school history: Lute Olson (men's basketball, 1974–83), Dan Gable (wrestling, 1976–97) and Hayden Fry (football, 1979–98).

In 1970, Boyd hired former Michigan football coach Bump Elliott to replace Forest Evashevski as athletic director.

After serving as Acting President, he returned to teaching as the Rawlings-Miller Professor of Law in 2003; he also was the Chester Phillips Research Fellow at the Tippie College of Business at Iowa from 2003 to 2006.

[2] Boyd was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Department of State Cultural Property Advisory Committee and the board of National Arts Strategies and chaired the Iowa Cultural Trust.