Ellis Laurimore Phillips Jr. ’42

El, of Medfield, Mass., died Sept. 28, 2006.

He prepared at Deerfield Academy and graduated from Princeton summa cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. El, our captain of varsity track, was a member of Quadrangle Club.

After serving as an Army intelligence officer in World War II, El graduated from Columbia Law School. Following five years of practice in New York City, he returned to Columbia as assistant dean of the law school and rose to professor of law and budget director of the university. During a sabbatical year — 1967 — he was a special assistant to Ambassador John Hay Whitney in London. In 1970 he left Columbia to become president of Ithaca College.

During El’s five-year tenure at Ithaca, he oversaw a major restructuring of the curriculum and substantive changes on campus. Phillips Hall is named in his honor. In 1986, Ithaca’s trustees awarded El an honorary doctorate, lauding him as a “distinguished educator, administrator, and philanthropist . . . ”

After Ithaca, El provided educational-consulting services and continued as president of the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation, which supports the arts, education, and historic preservation.

To El’s wife, Marion; their five children; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren; the class extends sincere condolences.