William George Shannon

WILLIAM SHANNON Advocate for community colleges and continuing education William G. Shannon, the first advocate for turning "junior colleges" into the present nationwide array of community colleges, died June 23, 2015 of renal failure. The Kensington, MD resident was 93. Toward the end of his career in education policy, Shannon was executive director of the National Advisory Council on Extension and Continuing Education under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. He retired in 1986. During the mid-1960s, when President Lyndon Johnson was crafting his Great Society, Shannon was senior vice president and Congressional liaison for the American Association of Junior Colleges (AAJC, now the AACC). Shannon spent years knocking on Capitol Hill doors, preaching the benefits of adding technical and trade courses to existing junior college curricula, and seeking federal money to build "in the community" colleges. His efforts forwarded the renewal of the Higher Education Act in 1968, which included money to construct community colleges and to revamp junior colleges. President Johnson handed Shannon one of the pens he used in signing the legislation. In 1986, Shannon was honored by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) for being their first advocate. In 2012, the American Student Association of Community Colleges (ASACC) similarly honored him, calling him the father of modern-day community colleges. On his 90th birthday, civic activist and friend Ralph Nader said "I can't say enough good things about Bill's sense of educational priorities and his preference for bold thinking." All his life, Shannon believed in equal rights and equal opportunities. In the 1950's, he was executive director of the Encampment for Citizenship, a summer program in which students of all races and backgrounds live together and form a self-governing community. The racial mixing component, especially, was radical for the time, almost two decades before the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the Encampment's board, and for many years, Shannon and the campers visited her at Hyde Park. William George Shannon was born June 7, 1922 in Newark, NJ, the fourth and last child of Esma Asmar and Rizkalla Shannon, both natives of Beit Meri, a village outside Beirut, Lebanon. He was graduated from Danbury High School in Danbury, CT, and Antioch College in Ohio, and earned a Ph.D in education from Columbia University. During World War II, Shannon was trained as a meteorologist for the 70th Army Air Force Base Unit. After the war he returned to Antioch College, where he met Joan Lesser. When they married in 1947, the Lithuanian, Jewish relatives on her side and Catholic, Arab relatives on his became one family, which they are to this day He is survived by his wife of 68 years, Joan Shannon; and his older brother, Theodore (Kate), of Madison WI. Also, a daughter, Carol Shannon Hsu (Jean-Pierre) of Berkeley Springs, WV; a son, Jeffrey W. Shannon (Salley) of Derwood, MD; grandchildren, Jessica Roth (Collins), Benjamin Shannon, Bradford Shannon, Marielle Hsu and Liliane Hsu; and four great-grandchildren, Isabella, Charlotte, William and Penn Roth. A private celebration of William Shannon's life will be scheduled in the fall. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Encampment for Citizenship: www.encampmentforcitizenship.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.encampmentforcitizenship.org www.encampmentforcitizenship.org