McInnes, William Charles, 1923-2009

William Charles “Bill” McInnes, SJ was born on January 20, 1923, in Boston, Massachusetts to William C. and Mary E. (Byrne) McInnes. He had two siblings, Paul McInnes and Helen (McInnes) Watson. He entered Boston College in 1940, but interrupted his studies to enlist in the United States Army in 1942. The Army trained McInnes as a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and he travelled with the Army Air Forces as a meteorology officer during World War II, serving in China, Africa and India. He received his BS in Business Administration from Boston College in 1944. After being honorably discharged from the Army in 1946, he entered the Society of Jesus at Weston College. He then received his MA in Philosophy from Boston College in 1951, his PhD in Business Administration from New York University in 1954, and was ordained a Jesuit priest on June 15, 1957.

McInnes became a professor of Business Ethics at Boston College in 1959, and was appointed Associate Dean of the School of Business 1961. He left Boston College in 1964 to become the President of Fairfield University, a position he held until 1973. McInnes oversaw tremendous growth at Fairfield University, including the acceptance of women students in 1970 and an overall doubling of the student body. In 1972, McInnes was appointed President of the University of San Francisco, where he oversaw a financial reform of the university’s administration. In 1977, he left the University of San Francisco to become the president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU), a consortium of Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States, until 1989. In 1990, he took a position as a campus minister at the University of Connecticut and the parochial vicar of St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Parish in Storrs, Connecticut. After retiring, he returned to the Jesuit community in Weston, where he taught courses at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management and supported the Boston College Alumni Association and local priests and parishes.

McInnes died on December 8, 2009 from complications of cancer and a fall.