William Jackson, a professor emeritus of biology who spent nearly four decades at the College, died on March 20 in his home in Tampa, Fla. He was 88 years old.
Jackson received his bachelor's degree from Ohio State University, a master's from the University of Tennessee and a PhD in biological sciences from Duke University, and he served in the U.S. Army during World War II, according to his obituary in the Portsmouth Herald.
He taught botany at Yale University until moving to the College in the mid-1950s. Before retiring in 1990, he played a role in merging the fields of botany and zoology at Dartmouth.
"It was a difficult time for the departments because of the changes they were going through," former biology professor David Dennison said. "He engaged in some vigorous exchanges of views."
Collaborating with Dennison and other colleagues, Jackson helped design a new introductory biology course, "Life Science," that combined the two disciplines, according to Dennison. In the classroom, Jackson was "passionate about teaching" and supportive of his students.
"He had a booming voice," Dennison said. "He said it himself he had a foghorn voice which carried the whole room."
Jackson also founded the William T. Jackson Fund, to which he contributed money to benefit students' education, according to biology professor Roger Sloboda.
His extensive research on mitosis, particularly in the African blood lily, made Jackson a "very well-known person in plant mitosis," Sloboda said.
The College's greenhouse was filled with these African lilies in 1988, when Associate Dean of the Sciences and biology professor C. Robertson McClung first began teaching at Dartmouth, he said.
Jackson was very supportive of new professors like himself joining the department, McClung said.
"He was full of advice, generous with material," he said. "He'd talk with you about your teaching, about your research and about how to make the transition to becoming a professor."
Jackson's office was home to 40 different filing cabinets holding all his research on mitosis, and he knew the exact location of all the material and papers, Sloboda said.
"He always amazed me with the exacting nature of his cataloguing abilities," Sloboda said. "That really amazed me as a young faculty member."
In the Herald obituary, family members issued a statement that emphasized Jackson's ease when meeting new people and love of interacting with others.
"Bill could walk into any room and be deep in conversation with a new person within a half hour," they said. "Talking to people was a great joy of his, and he was happiest surrounded by friends and people who were about to be friends."
McClung said Jackson's interest in a variety of topics made him a "fascinating conversationalist."
"He was very, very engaging," he said.
In his free time, Jackson enjoyed activities such as hunting, fishing, kayaking and golf, according to the obituary.
Jackson is survived by his wife Nancy McLamore and three children, Nancy, Thomas and Michael, as well as a grandson.
