Shields, L. Donald

L. Donald Shields served as the eighth president of Southern Methodist University from 1981 until 1986. He was president of California State College at Fullerton before coming to Dallas. His tenure at SMU was cut short by failing health and fallout from the infamous "death penalty" football scandal in 1986-87.

Shields was born in San Diego on September 18, 1936, and earned a B.A. in chemistry from the University of California, Riverside, in 1959. He later received a Ph.D., also in chemistry, from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1964. He taught at California State College, Fullerton, from 1963 until 1967 when he entered the school’s administration as a vice president.

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