Converse University president dies in a bicycle accident

The recently appointed president of Converse University died Wednesday after falling from his bicycle on a Spartanburg street.

Jeffrey Barker, 63 was a 20-year employee of the university and was poised to lead the school through an evolution from women’s college to admitting men in its undergraduate program.

The school will enroll 366 students next month, the largest class in 30 years.

Barker served as provost before taking the president’s job July 6.

Barker retired at the end of the 2020-2021 school year but came out of retirement once President Krista Newkirk announced she was leaving to take a job as president of the University of Redlands in California.

Barker agreed to serve as president for a year while the Board of Trustees searched for a new president.

Barker also taught philosophy, specializing in biomedical ethics and law, and even as provost taught one class a semester.

Boone Hopkins, who was tapped by the university’s Board of Trustees Thursday to serve as interim president, called Barker the “quintessential philosophy professor.”

“He had a way of asking the right questions to help you unlock the right answers,” Hopkins said.

That was especially true in the past year as the school planned for its first full year of coeducation, Hopkins said.

Hopkins said Barker had a gleam in his eye when he talked about his classes, especially conversations about navigating thorny ethics issues with students.

Newkirk said she saw the same enthusiasm in Barker.

“He was a philosopher at heart and a teacher in spirit,” she said. “I’m just heartbroken.”

Newkirk and Barker worked together for five years, and she said she never doubted that he was going to make the right decision in any given situation.

“We were in lock step,” she said.

Barker had a wry sense of humor and was so self-effacing he took on the role of Nazi in a “Caberet” performance on campus and as a Conga dancer in “Legally Blonde.”

Hopkins, who started at Converse as a theater professor, said he had already asked Barker to be Pigpen in “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” this year. Barker responded, “Sign me up.”

“He always found a way to bring joy to a situation,” Hopkins said.

Rick Mulkey, director of the university’s Low Residency Master of Fine Arts program, said he always marveled at Barker, the family man. Mulkey and Barker spent time together with their sons fishing and going to baseball games when the boys, now grown, were young.

Mulkey remembered Barker sitting in to play the guitar with the boys, who are both now professional musicians.

Anita Rose, a Converse English professor, said the last time she spoke with Barker was at the annual “hats off” party earlier this summer. He had on a hat sporting the name of a band his son Sam played in.

“It was clear that Jeff took great pride and pleasure in talking about Sam’s endeavors,” she said. He encouraged her to go see the band in Asheville.

“He was a deeply principled person, with a great deal of integrity. His jobs were largely thankless ones at Converse, but I always trusted him to be thoughtful, fair, honest, and empathetic,” Rose said.

Mulkey said Barker attended almost all events on campus, from literary readings to theater to presentations of faculty members about their sabbaticals. Sometimes, Barker would step out of one event to go to another, Mulkey said.

Barker’s wife, Jan, was a supporter of the university’s opera program, Hopkins said.

Details of what happened Wednesday night are slim. The Spartanburg County coroner has not yet released a cause of death.

The accident occurred about 6:15 p.m. on Meadowbrook Road, a sparsely developed thoroughfare several miles northeast of Barker’s home.

South Carolina Highway Patrol reported that a bike rider “spilled the bike” on the right side of the roadway. He was wearing a helmet.

The university announced it would suspend operations Thursday and Friday.

“While we will tend to that which is critical, we are giving ourselves the space to mourn our President, colleague, friend, and devoted supporter of our beloved Converse,” the university said in a statement.

A gathering was held Thursday to honor Barker, and the tower bell rang 20 times to honor the two decades of service Barker gave to the school.

About 100 people attended the gathering in the university’s historic administration building, Wilson Hall. Mulkey said he was touched by the number of people who had stories similar to his about Barker’s interest in their work.

Mulkey, a poet, joked that Barker was probably the only person who read his books. Barker often sent him emails about certain poems he liked and recently told Mulkey he planned to attend a reading Mulkey was giving next week at a Greenville bookstore.

Hopkins said he saw alumni and students in the audience as well as faculty and staff.

“It was a really touching moment,” he said. “That’s when we are Converse, when we are gathered together.”

A campus-wide memorial will be planned for a later date.

Barker was an avid biker who sometimes rode his bicycle to campus, Hopkins said. Barker was also a triathlete.

Newkirk said Barker wasn’t just an average triathlete. He often won in his age groups and other age groups.

“One of the comforts to me is knowing he was doing something he loved,” Hopkins said.

Rose said, “He was a friend and advocate for us all, and he has left Converse a much stronger institution.”

This story was originally published July 22, 2021 at 11:59 AM.