In Memoriam

Sharyn Wilson, associate secretary and loyal keeper of Corporation records

Wilson, one of the unheralded senior staff members on whom so many at the university have depended over time, also helped assemble Yale’s valuable phone and address directories.

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Sharyn Wilson, associate secretary and loyal keeper of Corporation records
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Sharyn Beck Wilson, who rose to become associate secretary of the university in the 1970s, managing an extensive portfolio, and also helped oversee a presidential search in 1992-1993 that culminated in the appointment of Richard Levin as Yale’s 22nd president, died on Dec. 15 after a long illness. She was 79.

Wilson was one of the longtime university administrators who quietly, competently, and often in unrecognized ways handled a plethora of Yale business. She began her career in the late 1960s as a secretary in the comparative literature department. Over the next two decades she rose through the ranks as, first, assistant to the secretary, and then as assistant secretary, and associate secretary. In what was then a smaller Yale, she not only helped staff the members of the Yale Corporation, the university’s board of trustees, which was a noteworthy and time-consuming job in itself, but she oversaw the Office of Foreign Students and Scholars, and all the university’s public ceremonies, including commencement events. 

Impressively, during those same years Wilson also led the publication of the University Directory, the invaluable community bulletin that was published each fall. The directory listed the name, position, office address, and work phone number for each member of the faculty and most staff members — and even the names of their spouses, home addresses, and telephone numbers. In the back of the book, professional and graduate schools, academic departments, offices, and residential colleges were listed alphabetically with the names of those who worked in them. The residential college listings even included all the college fellows. The directory helped draw the university into a single community and, in the days before email, allowed people to ask about spouses by name and send invitations and holiday cards easily by mail.

Collecting this information was a massive year-long undertaking which Wilson managed laboriously, first by hand, and eventually helped figure out how to computerize.

“As associate secretary, Sharyn was my right arm, detailed, efficient, accurate, supportive, discrete, an exemplary colleague and friend,” remembered John Wilkinson, secretary of the University from 1981 to 1987. 

Linda Lorimer, vice president and secretary from 1995 to 2015, praised her with many of the same adjectives and noted that she was “loyal to a Yale whose standards she deeply cared were maintained.” In her quiet and self-effacing way, Lorimer added, she was “indispensable.” 

Sharyn Beck Wilson was born in Jackson, Tennessee. She earned a B.A. in English from Transylvania College and an M.A.T. in English teaching from Wesleyan University. She moved to the New Haven area with her husband, Robert Wilson, who was the Hoober Professor of Religious Studies and professor of Old Testament at Yale, when he first arrived at Yale Divinity School as a student. 

After working for Yale for many years, Wilson returned to school herself in 1992, earning her M.B.A. from Yale School of Management. She then returned to Yale an employee, to staff a committee formed to find a new university president, a role which called on her many organizational skills, her grace under fire, and her absolute discretion. Her wide talents allowed her to finish her career at Yale as a Project Manager in Student Information Technology Services.

She was also an avid classical music lover, who sang in choirs, including the New Haven Oratorio Choir, played piano and cello, attended the Metropolitan Opera regularly, and spent summers in the Berkshires enjoying the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. 

Wilson is survived by her husband; her brother, Dennis Beck (Cynthia); her nephew, Richard Beck (Danielle); and her grandnephew, Riley Chandler Beck. Family and friends will hold a graveside service celebrating her life at 11 a.m. on Dec. 21 at the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven.

In lieu of flowers, her memory may be honored by contributing to the scholarship funds of Yale Divinity School, 409 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511