Brandeis has established a scholarship in honor of Tony Williams, the beloved longtime director of Brandeis’s acclaimed Transitional Year Program, who died in late 2007 after a two-year battle with lung cancer. He was 68.

Williams came to Brandeis as assistant dean of students in 1969. Nine years later he was appointed director of the TYP, put in charge of the pioneering initiative that gives outstanding individuals their first real chance to pursue a rigorous university education. He retired as director in 2004, but taught his sociology course for another year.

As all great teachers understand, Williams knew that some of the most enduring lessons have little to do with subject matter.

“With Mr. Williams, it wasn’t just about academics,” said Pedro Fontes ’00, a Transitional Year Program student during the 1995-96 academic year. “He taught us so much more than that. He taught important life lessons.”

“He was teaching students and people all the time – it was just who he was,” said current TYP director Erika Smith, who came to Brandeis in 2000 and succeeded Williams when he retired. “He was always disseminating some information.”

TYP graduates from around the country returned to campus to join the Brandeis community for a memorial service to honor Williams.

“He’s a guy who really cared,” said Jahfree Duncan ’09, a TYP student in 2004-05. “Look at all the lives that he positively impacted. He gave people futures.”

To make a gift to the Tony Williams TYP Scholarship, which supports TYP students, contact Daniel Miller (781-736-4115 or danielm@brandeis.edu) or visit the Brandeis online giving page.