Prof. Parsons served as a faculty member and chair of the Geology Department from 1947 to 1975. Upon arriving at Allegheny Prof. Parsons revived a geology department which had all but expired. Over the next thirty years the department was firmly established and is now nationally recognized. In continued support of the geology program that he helped to establish, Prof. Parsons has donated a seismograph to the College as well as $100,000 to support the enrichment of Geology at Allegheny.
Son of a New England minister, Prof. Parsons was born in 1913 in New Haven, CT. He grew up in Pittsfield, MA and graduated with an A.B. in Mathematics and Science from Union College (N.Y.) in 1936, followed by an M.S. in Geology in 1938. He taught high school Chemistry and Physics for nine years in the Hudson Valley. In 1947, he began his position as Geology Dept. chair at Allegheny.
During an interval of 15 years, Mr. Parsons was Registar of the College, took graduate courses at Syracuse, Harvard and a sabbatical leave at Penn State University. He received a National Fellowship to the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (1959). His later research was in paleopalynology (fossil spores and pollen) in N.W. Pennsylvania.
He was an active member of the American Association of Stratigraphic Palynology. He has been listed in Who’s Who in the East. Bill retired in 1975 to Staunton, VA. In 1996 he lost his beloved wife after 58 years of marriage. Since 1990 he has lived in a retirement community in Charlottesville, VA and may be contacted through the Geology Department.