Few educators have had the positive impact on their institutions that Dr. Billy Wireman did on Queens University of Charlotte.

Dr. Wireman, who died Saturday after fighting cancer for three years, arrived in Charlotte in 1978 as president of what was then Queens College. In a growing city whose business and civic leadership included a strong contingent of Presbyterians, the Presbyterian-affiliated women's college was in deep trouble. Enrollment had sunk to 541.

Dr. Wireman, who had already saved a troubled Florida Presbyterian College -- transforming it in the process into Eckerd College -- dived in. He astutely recognized Queens needed better connections to the city's business leaders, but also saw that to launch radical changes right off the bat would be a mistake.

He recognized the trend of women's colleges admitting men (and men's colleges admitting women), however, and in 1987 Queens began admitting men. Admissions stabilized and began to grow. So did the school's endowment. It's no accident that Queens trustees have included such influential business leaders as retired Bank of America CEO Hugh McColl Jr.

Today Queens is a university offering graduate degrees, has an enrollment of 1,900 students and an endowment of $33 million and boasts the John Belk International Program, named for the retired department store magnate, as well as the McColl Graduate School of Business. Dr. Wireman retired in 2002, but kept close ties to the school.

Somehow, Dr. Wireman also found time to chair the Charlotte World Affairs Council, to travel widely, to help Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools launch a Center for Leadership and Global Economics and to become as knowledgeable about world affairs as anyone in Charlotte.

He was a remarkable man, with seemingly boundless energy and a lifelong thirst for learning. Even more important, he had a deep appreciation for the importance of civic stewardship -- of the responsibility that civic leaders have to give back to their community and to leave it better than they found it. He certainly did.

Queens University and Charlotte have been touched and enriched by Dr. Wireman's life and presence.

Services

Services 11 a.m. today, First Presbyterian; 3 p.m. today, Belk Chapel, Queens University of Charlotte