Don A. Orton, for 24 years guided Lesley College through major expansion

Don A. Orton was a soft-spoken intellectual who guided Lesley College through major expansion, by implementing a multitude of programs over the years to ensure that it maintained its eminence as an institution devoted to training teachers.

In describing his own leadership style, Dr. Orton tended to throw out words such as ``freedom" and ``accountability," terms that characterized his 24-year presidency of the Cambridge college, according to his former colleagues.

While he gave his deputies an unusual amount of freedom in developing innovative programs, he was also known for having high expectations of them and for never shying away from taking them to task if he perceived them as having come up short.

Dr. Orton, who led the college from 1960 to 1984 and helped prepare it for the transformation to Lesley University , died May 19 at the Hospice of Palm Beach County in Florida, from complications of congestive heart failure. He was 88.

``He was an empowerer," said Richard Wylie, president of Endicott College, who worked with him at Lesley. ``He empowered people to make decisions and he would always coach you, so that he was not the front person -- you were, but you were well-coached to make the decisions you had to make."

Dr. Orton was raised in a Mormon household in Sandy, Utah, that placed a heavy emphasis on education. He spent two years in his late teens doing missionary work in Sweden before he headed into academia.

When Dr. Orton arrived at Lesley College in 1960, there were 631 undergraduate students. By the time he left in the mid-1980s, there were 3,000 students, and many new programs.

``He was one of the administrators who really, truly believed that the teacher made a difference, that if you could train teachers to be good teachers, students would respect them," Wylie said.

Dr. Orton spent a lot of time thinking and teaching about group analysis, promoting the idea that self-awareness is key to successful teaching. ``He really was a national figure in engaging people in trying to connect with themselves," Wylie said.

Strong relations with surrounding school districts helped Lesley College keep an edge when placing students in jobs. In the mid-1970s, when the number of trained teachers far outnumbered the positions available, Lesley had an impressive 90 percent placement rate.

The first male student got his degree in 1974, and the school officially went co-ed last year.

In the late 1970s, Dr. Orton spearheaded an effort to add the basics of economics into the elementary and high school curriculum, helping the college establish the National Center of Economic Education for Children. President Carter was quoted in newspapers as telling Dr. Orton, ``You are moving ahead when most colleges are pulling back. . . . Your leadership is impressive."

The autonomy he gave the college's deans and vice president made Dr. Orton popular among educators and fellow academics.

``There are very few leaders that can give someone that much freedom and then leave them alone," said a university professor, Shaun McNiff.

He also had a knack for getting administrators to work with -- and, when necessary, against -- one another to get things done.

``He set it up so his vice presidents would compete with each other and then he'd sit back and smile," McNiff said.

Dr. Orton earned his bachelor's degree in English from the University of Utah in 1942, and a master's degree in educational administration from Ohio State University in 1944. He was principal and superintendent in Driggs, Idaho, from 1944 to 1946. He taught education courses at the University of Utah from 1947 to 1950 and then at the New York State College for Teachers in Albany, N.Y. in the early 1950s.

He earned his doctorate in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1950 and went back to the University of Utah to lead its college of education in 1952. He moved back east to teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1959.

He married Leslie (Feuer) , a student at Lesley, in 1968.

``He had a remarkable facility to tune in to people," his wife said.

To his grandchildren, he was Dapper Don, a reference to his typically immaculate attire.

In addition to his wife, Dr. Orton leaves a son, Andrew of Lake Worth, Fla.; a daughter, Kate Jenson of Salt Lake City; three sons from a previous marriage, Don of Veneta, Oregon; Bruce of Escondido, Calif.; and Guy of Rexburg, Idaho; a daughter from a previous marriage, Allison of Sonora, Calif.; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Graveside services will be held at 10:30 a.m. today in the Sandy City Cemetery in Utah.