Burchard Woodson DeBusk

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Burchard Woodson DeBusk (October 23, 1877 – July 29, 1936) was an American educator and a professor of education at the University of Oregon. He was born in Shelbyville, Indiana, and grew up in Indiana. In the 1890s he studied at Central Normal College in Danville and taught in rural Indiana schools. He earned a BA from Indiana University in 1904 and a PhD in education from Clark University in 1915. He married Sara Matella Druley in 1905.

Early in his career, DeBusk taught psychology at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas (1904) and was an associate professor of psychology at Colorado State Teachers College (1910). In 1915 he joined the University of Oregon College of Education, where he became a respected expert in educational psychology and school hygiene. He traveled to lecture widely and advised school districts, as well as the juvenile court in Portland, Oregon.

In the 1920s, DeBusk led the research department for Portland Public Schools. He died of a heart attack in 1936 in Eugene, Oregon, at age 58. In his honor, the College of Education renamed the Clinic for Exceptional Children the DeBusk Memorial Clinic for Exceptional Children.