Shirley S Kenny

Dr. Kenny was a tireless advocate for public education and especially for first-generation college students. She retired as president of the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2009 after previously serving as president of the Queens College of the City University of New York. Before moving to Queens she rose from Chairman of the English Department to become Provost of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland College Park. She also chaired the Boyer Commission, whose 1998 report on Reinventing Undergraduate Education led to the foundation of the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities, which continues to shape educational policy today. In 2007 she was honored with a Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Award.

Dr. Kenny was born in Tyler, Texas on August 28, 1934, the younger child of Marcus and Florence Strum. She was valedictorian of John Tyler High School and graduated with high distinction from the University of Texas at Austin, where she succeeded her future husband Robert Kenny as editor of the Daily Texan and also performed at halftime of football games as captain of the Texas Stars baton-twirling team. She and Robert were married in a private ceremony at her parents’ house on July 22, 1956.

Following a year in England on a Fulbright Scholarship, she earned her master’s degree in English literature from the University of Minnesota and her doctorate from the University of Chicago. After moving to the Washington, D.C. area where she and Robert both found faculty positions, she taught at Gallaudet College and the Catholic University of America before joining the English Department of the University of Maryland. Her specialization in drama of the British Restoration period reflected her lifelong love of live theater, and her appointment as department chair revealed a formidable talent for administration. She served as Provost for Arts and Humanities from 1979 to 1985, when she was appointed President of Queens College. There she worked to foster opportunities for first-generation students.

During her tenures at both Queens and Stony Brook, where in 1994 she became the university’s first president who was not a physicist named John, she used a blend of Southern charm and ferocious tenacity to cultivate donors and sway political leaders of both parties, securing funding for sweeping improvements to campus life and particularly the undergraduate experience. While at Queens she was instrumental in founding the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona. At Stony Brook she oversaw the renovation of the physical campus; development of the Charles B. Wang Center for Asian and Asian-American Arts and Culture; construction of a new four-season stadium and the athletics department’s move up to NCAA Division I; and the acquisition of Southampton College from Long Island University. Stony Brook holds an annual month-long arts festival in her honor.

She was preceded in death by her son Joel Strum Kenny, who succumbed to leukemia in 1999; older brother Stanley Strum of Waco, Texas; and husband Robert Wayne Kenny, who passed away on April 4, 2025. In 2008, Shirley and Robert established the Joel Strum Kenny School in Mitsinjo, Madagascar in his honor, it now serves 238 students.

She is survived by her son David and daughter-in-law Anne of Frederick, Maryland; sons Daniel and Jonathan of Alexandria, Virginia; daughter Sarah Kenny Azzara of McLean, Virginia; daughter-in-law Deborah Kenny of New York, New York; grandchildren Avraham Kenny and his wife Mallory Little of Durham, North Carolina, Chava Kenny and her husband Anthony Bator of Southborough, Massachusetts, Rachel Kenny of Washington, D.C., and Casper Azzara of McLean, Virginia; great-grandson Tyler Joel Kenny of Southborough, Massachusetts; and great-granddaughter Nessa Sage Kenny of Durham, North Carolina.

A memorial service will be held at 1:30 Wednesday, September 9 at Temple Rodef Shalom, 2100 Westmoreland Street, Falls Church, Virginia, 22043, followed by interment in King David Memorial Gardens, 7482 Lee Highway, Falls Church, Virginia 22042. The family requests donations to World Central Kitchen in lieu of flowers or other gifts.