Travis M. Roy
Travis Roy (1975–2020), the former BU hockey player who was paralyzed from the neck down in an on-ice accident in 1995, died on October 29, 2020, from complications due to his spinal injury. Roy (COM’00, Hon.’16), who went on to graduate from BU, write a book about his experience, and found the Travis Roy Foundation, had a long relationship with the Sargent College community. He worked on his recovery and rehabilitation at Sargent and, in 2015, anonymous donors endowed a new position: the Travis M. Roy Professor in Rehabilitation Sciences. Read more about Roy’s relationship with Sargent College.
William A. Anthony
Over his 40-year career as a psychologist, William A. Anthony was often referred to as the “Father of Psychiatric Rehabilitation” for his lifetime of advocating, teaching, training, and conducting research for people who live with mental health conditions. In 1979, he founded the BU Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Sargent College and served as its executive director until his retirement in 2011. Anthony died on July 15, 2020, at the age of 77.
Anthony began his career at Walter Reed Army Hospital where he saw that veterans with PTSD and other mental health conditions were not receiving the same care as veterans with physical wounds. He challenged the mental health and rehabilitation fields to invest in recovery and to transform their people, programs, and systems in order to improve the lives of individuals with mental health challenges. In 1992, he received the Distinguished Service Award from President George H. W. Bush (Hon.’89) for his efforts.
Linda Duncombe
Linda Duncombe (’72, Wheelock’02) joined the occupational therapy faculty at Sargent College in 1974 and remained in that role until retiring in 2009. She died in July 2020 at the age of 73.
From 1991 until her retirement, Duncombe was the academic fieldwork coordinator for the occupational therapy professional-entry programs, responsible for securing and maintaining relationships with clinical sites across the US and matching students with placements. In this role, she interacted with every student (sometimes more than 100 a year) at a crucial point in their professional education, and she was dedicated to their success. She remembered many of them even years after they graduated and moved on in their careers.
She was also dedicated to supporting fieldwork clinical supervisors to provide effective guidance to their students. This work continued after retirement as she served as a certified fieldwork educator for the American Occupational Therapy Association.
Mary Pratt
During her collegiate career, Mary Pratt made every team she tried out for, competing in basketball, softball, fistball, volleyball, lacrosse, field hockey, sailing, tennis, and archery. She went on to become an advocate for women in sports.
Pratt (’40) was also an original member of the Rockford Peaches, a team in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II. The league was featured in the 1992 hit film A League of Their Own, starring Geena Davis (CFA’79, Hon.’99). A BU Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, Pratt died on May 6, 2020. She was 101.
Born in Bridgeport, Conn., in 1918, Pratt moved to Quincy, Mass., in 1932 and earned a degree in physical education from Sargent. After her professional athletic career ended, she remained devoted to sports, as a teacher, a mentor, and an advocate. She taught for more than 40 years and, in 1986, cofounded New Agenda-Northeast, which helps create athletic opportunities for women.