Lancelot C.A. Thompson, a University of Toledo chemistry professor — and for 20 years vice president of student affairs — died Saturday in his West Toledo home. He was 91.

He was in declining health, his wife, Naomi, said.

Mr. Thompson retired in 1988 but continued to tutor UT athletes, chemistry students, and participants in Toledo Excel, the scholarship incentive program for high school students.

“There isn’t any aspect of the university Lance wasn’t involved in,” said Kaye Patten, senior vice president of student affairs, in her 11th year at UT.

“What he did as soon as I arrived, he made it his business to visit me, to welcome me, and also to offer support and to help me understand the lay of the land in Toledo,” Ms. Patten said. “I feel I stand on his shoulders.”

UT officials have said he was the first black full-time faculty member hired, the first to receive tenure, and the first black vice president.

In 2014, more than 100 admirers, including UT officials and students, turned out for the ceremonial naming of Student Union room 2592 as the Lancelot C.A. Thompson Meeting Room.

Being a mentor to youth, especially black students, was a priority from his arrival at UT in 1958.

“Being the only black faculty at the university for four years, I had to be a mentor,” Mr. Thompson told The Blade in 2014. “There was nobody else for them. It didn’t matter if it was a black, white, Hispanic, or Asian student, my job was to teach and mentor all students.”

He was born March 2, 1925, in Jamaica, to Vera and Cyril A. Thompson. In his early 20s, he taught science and math and was athletic director of Cornwall College, a secondary school in Jamaica.

A track scholarship in 1949 from Morgan State University in Baltimore brought him to the United States. In 1952, he received a bachelor of science degree in chemistry — and on July 9 married Naomi Sims, whom he met at Morgan State.

He received a doctorate in chemistry from Wayne State University in Detroit in 1956. He returned to Jamaica briefly as science chairman of a boys school and afterward had a post-doctoral fellowship at Pennsylvania State University.

UT hired him in 1958. He became assistant dean of the arts and sciences college in 1964 and dean of student services in 1966. He accepted the post of vice president for student affairs in 1968 after then-President William Carlson assured him he could still teach.

Mr. Thompson was one of the first recipients of the UT Outstanding Teacher Award, chosen from student nominations.

He was a former chairman of the Toledo section of the American Chemical Society and a consultant to Owens-Illinois Inc. He’d been on the executive board of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. His community service included the Toledo Development Committee and the boards of the American Red Cross, the Toledo Health Planning Association, and the former Mary Manse College.

Surviving are his wife, Naomi; son, Lancelot, Jr.; daughters, Carol Thompson and Angela Klinedinst; sisters, Carmen Reynolds and Cynthia Gordon; brother, Frederick; three grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.

Funeral services will be at 5 p.m. Saturday in St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, of which he was a member, with visitation after 4 p.m. Services by Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and Alpha Phi Boule’ Fraternity are to be at 4:30 p.m. Arrangements are by the Dale-Riggs Funeral Home.

UT has scheduled a memorial service for 6 p.m. Monday in the Student Union auditorium.

The family suggests tributes to the church or a charity of the donor’s choice. 

Contact Mark Zaborney at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.

First Published September 15, 2016, 4:00 a.m.