The University of St. Thomas community mourns the passing of former Board of Trustee member Dr. Frank Benjamin Wilderson, Jr., a dedicated educator and advocate for justice, who died peacefully on June 17, 2025, at the age of 94.
Wilderson served 21 years on the St. Thomas Board of Trustees, beginning in 1998, offering wise counsel as a member of the Student Affairs and Institutional Diversity committees. He was invited to join the board by then-President Father Dennis Dease, with whom he had shared service on the parish council at the Basilica of St. Mary.
A devout Catholic and longtime supporter of Catholic higher education, Wilderson believed deeply in the university’s mission and the transformative power of learning.
“Managing growth” was among the university’s greatest challenges, he once said in a St. Thomas magazine article. “We need to choose carefully the areas of growth and put a lot of energy into making sure the quality is commensurate with other programs.”
His commitment to educational access and student well-being was noted in the Summer 1999 St. Thomas Magazine.
“He advanced from a childhood in the segregated South to a distinguished career as a Minnesota educator whose only real goal was to make a difference in the lives of students and children,” author Doug Hennes wrote.
Wilderson was the first Black vice president at the University of Minnesota, where he spent nearly four decades advancing equity, innovation, and student support across campuses. He played a pivotal role in helping to peacefully resolve the 1969 Morrill Hall takeover, a historic student protest that led to the establishment of the university’s Department of African American & African Studies; he became the founding chair.
A licensed psychologist, he also served as a professor, program director, vice president of student affairs. He contributed nationally to initiatives for students with emotional and behavioral disorders and advocated for mental health, addiction recovery, and education reform through service on boards including the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, Saint John’s School of Theology and the Bush Foundation.
Wilderson was born in Lutcher, Louisiana, and raised during the Jim Crow era. The St. Thomas magazine quoted him:
"Lutcher, Louisiana, was a thriving town with a cypress mill, and it was a way station for refueling and watering steam engines between New Orleans and Baton Rouge," Wilderson said in 1999 of his birthplace. "My dad bought trucks and hauled people to work on sugar cane plantations or on the riverfront as longshoremen. They needed food for lunch, so he opened a grocery."
Wilderson began his academic journey not far away from his childhood town. He enrolled at Xavier University of Louisiana, then the only Catholic college in the country open to African Americans. He started off as a pre-med student but switched to education and graduated in 1953. He later earned a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Michigan and dedicated his life to dismantling barriers for others.
He was especially proud to serve alongside his wife of 63 years, Dr. Ida-Lorraine Wilderson, with whom he co-chaired the Archdiocese’s Annual Appeal. She passed away in January 2019, the year Wilderson retired from his role as a St. Thomas trustee. Also in 2019, their daughter Fawn Elizabeth Wilderson, received a graduate degree in Academic Behavioral Strategist from St. Thomas' School of Education, and she was greeted on stage by her father.
In addition to Fawn, he is survived by three other children: Frank Wilderson III, Wayne Wilderson and Amy Wilderson.
A celebration of life service for Frank Wilderson was held July 10, 2025, from 3 to 6:30 p.m., at The Basilica of St. Mary, followed by a repast in the Church's undercroft. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to the Saint Vincent DePaul Shoe and Coat Ministry, sponsored by The Basilica of Saint Mary.
