Marguerite Ross Barnett, 49, first black woman to serve as head of a major U.S. university, 26 February 1992.

Daisy Bates, 84, civil rights leader and former president of the Arkansas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), who gained national attention when she counteracted the governor's attempt to prevent nine black students from entering Little Rock's Central High School, 4 November 1999.

Terrell H. Bell, 74, top U.S. education official (under three Republican presidents), who commissioned the 1983 report, "A Nation at Risk," which helped draw public attention to declining educational standards, 22 June 1996.

Allan Bloom, 62, professor of political philosophy at the University of Chicago, who gained fame for his 1987 best-sell- ing, yet controversial, book, The Closing of the American Mind, 7 October 1992.

Ernest LeRoy Boyer, 67, former U.S. Commissioner of Education under President Jimmy Carter and president of the Carnegie Foundation, who published several books on education, including Scholarship...