Varsity D Association Hall of Fame
Henry Durand '70 was a four-year letter winner and four-year starter at linebacker on defense and guard on offense for the Denison football team. He was honored as a first-team All-Ohio Athletic Conference linebacker as a junior in 1968. During his senior season in 1969, he was selected as the team's co-captain and was recognized as an honorable mention All-OAC guard.
When he joined the Big Red team as a rookie in 1966, Durand was the first African American football player at Denison since the early 1900s. He became co-founder and the first president of the university's Black Student Union, and he was a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity. He helped establish the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Award at Denison and was instrumental in founding the Denison Black Alumni Association.
After graduating from Denison with a bachelor of arts degree in sociology, Durant earned a master's degree in education at Xavier University and a Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati. He devoted his career to teaching and research that focused on social issues and problems, applied social research, and evaluation of social programs. He eventually went on to teach on the faculty and work in the administration at the University of Buffalo for more than two decades, where he served as the senior associate vice provost.
Durand served in the leadership of the Denison Black Alumni Association and was awarded the Denison Alumni Citation in June of 1996. His Varsity D Association Hall of Fame induction is made posthumously, as he passed away in December of 2018.
