Julian Cecil Stanley, 87, a noted psychologist,
statistician and educator who
reshaped the face of American education
for hundreds of thousands of academically
gifted young people after a chance meeting
with a precocious 13-year-old boy, died on
Aug. 12.
Born in East Point, Ga., in 1918, Stanley
graduated from West Georgia Junior College
(now the State University of West Georgia)
and Georgia Southern University. After
serving in the Army Air Corps Chemical
Warfare Service during World War II,
he entered Harvard University, where he
received his doctorate in education in 1950.
Both the University of North Texas and the
State University of West Georgia awarded
him honorary doctoral degrees.
After serving since 1967 as professor of
psychology at Johns Hopkins, he retired in
1999 as professor emeritus in the Department
of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
Previously, he had served on the faculties
of Vanderbilt University and the University
of Wisconsin. Visiting faculty appointments
took him to leading universities worldwide,
among them Harvard, Stanford, the University
of Louvain in Belgium, the University of
New South Wales in Australia and Shanghai
Teachers University.
Having begun his professional life as a
teacher of math and science in Atlanta high
schools, Stanley continued his keen interest
in these subject areas. Widely noted for his
work in the design of educational research,
Stanley co-authored with Donald Campbell
a book titled Experimental and Quasi-experimental
Designs for Research, which remains a
classic in the field.
His professional work as a quantitative
psychologist continued until 1969, when
a colleague introduced him to 13-year-old
Joseph Bates, an eighth-grader who had
run out of math options available to him
through the Baltimore City schools.
Understanding that an objective measure
of Bates’ abilities was needed, Stanley had
the youth take batteries of tests, including
the College Board SAT, on which Bates
scored very high on the math section. Subsequently,
other similarly gifted students came
to him for ability testing, and Stanley found
the SAT to be a reliable measure of advanced
mathematical and verbal reasoning abilities
for highly gifted young people—often more
reliable than teacher or parent recommendations.
Stanley quickly realized that high-ability
students could be identified systematically
through above-grade-level standardized testing,
and throughout the 1970s he held regular
talent searches and experimented with
a variety of accelerated program options to
serve the needs of high scorers. In 1979, the
Center for Talented Youth was established
at Johns Hopkins to carry out the mission
of talent identification and development.
Similar programs based on Stanley’s talent
search model were established at Duke,
Northwestern, the University of Denver
and elsewhere, including Ireland and Spain.
By 2005, these university-based programs
enrolled more than 200,000 highly talented
students into special testing programs and
rigorous academic course work.
“Dr. Stanley’s work led directly to the
creation of a robust national program that
parallels the school program and offers gifted
children the chance to take accelerated
and enriched course work in the company
of other extremely bright peers,” said Lea
Ybarra, executive director of CTY.
“Benignly insidious” was the phrase Stanley
himself used to describe the effect of his
work on schools. Having met with skepticism
from educators at the outset of his
work, Stanley decided to let the students’
impressive achievements speak for themselves.
Highly gifted students, denied the chance
to work at their own, significantly faster,
pace in their regular schools, would take
accelerated summer courses in a subject and
return to school in the fall having mastered
the course they were scheduled to take
that year. This forced the hand of school
administrators to place students into courses
appropriate for the student’s ability.
At the outset of Stanley’s work in the
1960s and ’70s, educators were widely skep-tical of claims that a mathematically gifted
child could master a year’s worth of Algebra
I in a three-week residential program, or
that a 12-year-old might know calculus.
Stanley documented the results of special
programs and students through careful
research. Consequently, most schools today
make provision to respond to the special
needs of these learners.
“Quite a few schools and school systems
have been encouraged to adopt more flexible
ways to accommodate their brightest
children,” Stanley said in an interview
in 2000. “The increasing acceptance of
advanced instruction and acceleration has
been gratifying to observe.”
Stanley retained directorship of his original
research program, the Study of Mathematically
Precocious Youth. Renamed in
June 2005 the Julian C. Stanley Study of
Exceptional Talent, the study enrolls students
who before age 13 earn scores of 700
or higher on the math or verbal portion of
the SAT, and provides counseling, mentoring
and other support for these profoundly
gifted students. Stanley continued to work
in SET as an active researcher and author
up until the time of his death.
In 2000, Stanley was awarded Mensa’s
first Lifetime Achievement Award. At the
ceremony in his honor, Linda Brody, his
colleague of many years and director of the
Study of Exceptional Talent, noted, “It is
impossible to exaggerate the impact Julian
Stanley’s work has had on creating opportunities
for gifted students in our country. His
work on behalf of gifted students during the
last 30 years has profoundly influenced the
lives of thousands of gifted children and led
to the establishment of programmatic models
that will be in place for generations to
come. His research has increased our understanding
of the characteristics and needs of
gifted children, and he serves as role model
for educators and researchers everywhere
who are interested in this population.”
During his career, Julian Stanley wrote or
edited 19 books and more than 500 articles
in professional journals. He served as president
of the American Educational Research
Association, the National Council on Measurement
in Education and two divisions of
the American Psychological Association.
He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the
National Academy of Education.
Stanley’s passion for developing academically
talented young people took on an
ethical and moral character later in his life,
when, in speaking of the dear price paid
by missed opportunities, he would inspire
educators by quoting poet John Greenleaf
Whittier:
Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’
Stanley’s wife, the former Dorothy Fahey,
survives him. His second wife, Barbara
Sprague Kerr Stanley, and first wife, Rose
Sanders Stanley, preceded him in death.
He is also survived by his daughter, Susan
Willhoft, of Tacoma, Wash.; a grandson,
Spencer Willhoft, of Bellingham, Wash.; a
sister, Lestina Webb, of Fayetteville, Ga; and
nieces and nephews.
A date for a memorial service, to be held
at Vantage House in Columbia, Md., will be
announced.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions
may be made in Julian Stanley’s name to the
Study of Exceptional Talent, Center for Talented
Youth, 5801 Smith Ave., Suite 400,
Baltimore, MD 21209.