John Summerskill: SFSC President ’66 – ‘68

John Henry Summerskill, (1925-1990): SFSC President September 1966-February 1968. BA McGill, University; Ph.D. Clinical Psychology, University of Pennsylvania. Resigned. The first of the San Francisco State Presidents during the stormy part of the 1960s, John Summerskill took office as President in Fall, 1966. Born in Montreal, Canada, in 1925, he received his B.A. degree at McGill University and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1951-1958, he was the Director of the Sloan Institute of Hospital Administration, and Professor of Administration in the Graduate School of Business and Public Administration, Cornell University. From 11958-1964, he was Vice President for Student Affairs at Cornell University. President Summerskill took office in September, 1966, and announced in February, 1968 that he would be leaving the College. In May, 1968, during a series of campus disruptions, his earlier resignation was accepted, and he left for Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia, as a member of a Ford Foundation project. He died June 15, 1990.