Sydel Silverman, an anthropologist who championed her profession as a scholar, teacher, historian and preservationist, died on March 25 in Manhattan. She was 85.

The cause was cancer, her son-in-law Kevin Yorn said.

Dr. Silverman taught at Queens College in New York from 1962 to 1975 — she was chairwoman of the anthropology department from 1970 to 1973 — and served as executive officer of the doctoral program in anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate Center from 1975 to 1986.

In 1976, during the city’s fiscal crisis, when City University officials threatened to eliminate what they deemed nonessential majors like anthropology at some of the senior colleges, Dr. Silverman mounted an emphatic defense.