Shane Hunt (from left), Gerald Leader, and Robert Willcutt. Photo courtesy of the family (Leader) and by BU Photography (Hunt and Willcutt)

Tributes

Remembering Wheelock’s Marcia Folsom and Robert Willcutt, CFA’s Robert J. Gartside, Jr., CAS’ Shane Hunt, and Questrom’s Gerald Leader

Marcia Folsom
Wheelock College of Education & Human Development

Marcia Folsom, a retired BU Wheelock College of Education & Human Development professor of literature who taught at the college for more than 50 years, died on April 16, 2025. She was 84. 

A 1962 graduate of Wellesley College, Folsom earned a PhD in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1976. She joined the faculty at the former Wheelock College in 1969, earning tenure in 1981 and serving as vice president for academic affairs from 1993 to 1997. 

She taught courses on Jane Austen, Western civilization, the 19th-century novel, the Renaissance, and other topics, according to her obituary. She edited By Women, An Anthology of Literature (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976), with Linda Heinlein Kirschner. 

Folsom retired in 2017, the year before the college merged with Boston University.

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Robert J. Gartside, Jr.
College of Fine Arts

Robert J. Gartside, Jr., a College of Fine Arts School of Music professor, died on April 20, 2024. He was 95.

After earning two degrees at Harvard University, Gartside won a fellowship to study in Paris, France, for a year with the baritone Pierre Bernac. He stayed on “to hone his understanding and interpretation of the French song, working with Bernac and renowned composer Francis Poulenc,” according to his obituary. For more than a decade, he performed as a recitalist and soloist in France, Germany, Belgium, and England. He made his American debut at Carnegie Hall in 1964.

Gartside joined the CFA faculty in 1967 and continued to perform, soloing in oratorios and giving song recitals around the country, according to his obituary. His books include Interpreting the Songs of Maurice Ravel (Leyerle Publications, 1992) and Interpreting the Songs of Gabriel Fauré (1996). He retired from BU in 1993.

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Shane Hunt
College of Arts & Sciences

Shane Hunt, a College of Arts & Sciences professor emeritus of economics, died February 8, 2025. He was 92.

Hunt graduated from the University of Miami and earned a master’s degree and a PhD in economics from Yale University. He specialized in macroeconomics of developing nations, and his research focused on Peru. In 1963, he and his family moved to Lima, and he became fluent in Spanish. He continued to visit Peru and neighboring countries while a professor of economics at Princeton University and later at BU, where he was hired in 1974.

In recent years, he was a consultant for the International Development Research Centre in Canada, which supports a consortium of economic and social research centers in Peru.

The Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE), a private nonprofit research center founded in 1980 in Lima, published a short tribute to Hunt and his wife on its website: “We, the members of GRADE who trained as economists, economic historians, and sociologists, came to know and appreciate Shane Hunt’s work long ago. He was…a key contributor to our economic history, a careful analyst of our national development process, and a great lover of Peru.”

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Gerald Leader
Questrom School of Business

Gerald Leader, a Questrom School of Business professor emeritus of management and organizations, died on May 12, 2025. He was 90 years old.

Leader studied engineering at Iowa State University and joined the ROTC, serving as an officer at Fort Leonard Wood after graduation. At Harvard Business School, he earned an MBA in 1961 and a doctorate in 1965. 

He taught at Stanford and Tulane business schools before joining the BU faculty, where he created the organizational behavior department. He taught at BU for 27 years. In 2002, he cofounded the Educator Leadership Institute, which prepares public school educators to become principals and other administrative leaders.

He was the author of Real Leaders, Real Schools: Stories of Success Against Enormous Odds (Harvard Education Press, 2008) and Bold School Principals: Collaborative Practices for Heightened Student Learning (EBook Bakery, 2023). In January 2025, he published a memoir, Marjorie to Sophia: Thirty Years of Stories (EBook Bakery).

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Robert Willcutt
Wheelock College of Education & Human Development 

Robert Willcutt, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development professor emeritus of math, died July 18, 2024. He was 90. 

Willcutt, who authored or coauthored many textbooks and articles, with a focus on spatial problem-solving, was a BU faculty member for 30 years, from 1969 to 1999. He taught in several of BU’s programs in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s and had a “dynamic personality and passion for teaching,” according to a published obituary. “His impact extended to the Boston Public Schools, where he brought his enthusiasm for interactive problem-solving to the students of Boston’s diverse neighborhoods. His contributions to education were recognized in 2010, when he was inducted into the Association of Teachers of Mathematics in Massachusetts Hall of Fame.” 

He also had a commitment to serving others, volunteering at Rosie’s Place in Boston’s South End and in hospices, tutoring English, and supporting many educational, environmental, and social causes.