Dr. David M. Gray, retired associate professor, vice president, acting dean, and director of international programs at Arcadia University (formerly Beaver College) in Wyncote, passed away of heart failure at his home in Ardmore on Wednesday, May 13. He was 95.

Dr. Gray’s foray into study abroad began in the 1960s when he joined a colleague and a few students on a study abroad trip to London, according to his obituary. He arrived at Beaver College in 1964 and established the Center for Education Abroad in 1965.

“By 1987, Dr. Gray was arranging for more than 1,500 students at more than 150 American colleges to spend at least one semester at more than 25 universities in the United Kingdom, Austria, Hong Kong, and elsewhere around the world,” his obituary said. His program “directly addressed an unmet educational need among American undergraduates,” Beaver colleagues said.

From 1965 to 2006, he arranged for more than 100,000 American students to study abroad.

Dr. Gray cofounded the Institute for Study Abroad at Butler University in Indianapolis in 1988. He also created the National Advisory Board for International Programs and the College Consortium for Education Abroad and served as executive director of the Pennsylvania Council for International Education, his obituary said.

From 2006 to his retirement in 2016, Dr. Gray served as chief executive officer of the Study Abroad Foundation. In 2008, for his years of collaboration with the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II named him an Honorary Officer of the Civil Division.

He was one of three finalists to be Beaver president in 1983.

He requested that no services be held, his obituary said.

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