Kenneth Thompson

Kenneth W. Thompson, AM'48, PhD'51 (Political Science), director of the University of Virginia's Miller Center for two decades, died February 2 in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was 91. A scholar of foreign relations and the American presidency, Thompson is best known for his contributions to normative theory in international relations. Thompson taught at both Chicago and Northwestern before his 1953 appointment as an international relations consultant at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he served as vice president from 1961 to 1974. He joined the University of Virginia faculty in 1975, teaching government and foreign affairs. Three years later Thompson was named director of UVA's Miller Center, a nonpartisan institute for the study of the US presidency, public policy, governance, and political history. He retired in 1998. As director of the Miller Center, Thompson organized the Presidential Oral History Program and the Forum Program, which presents guest speakers who shape public policy. He also helped organize bipartisan national commissions examining contemporary issues, including the selection of federal judges, presidential disability, and the separation of powers. Former Virginia governor Gerald L. Baliles, the current director and CEO of the Miller Center, said, it "would not be what it is today without the inspiration and passion of Ken Thompson ... Because of him, presidential history that might otherwise have been lost will be preserved for generations to come."

James M. Buchanan

James M. Buchanan, PhD'48 (Economics), the 1986 Nobel Prize winner in economics who helped shape a generation of conservative fiscal thought, died January 9 in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was 93. A professor emeritus at George Mason University, Buchanan was a leading proponent of public-choice theory, which asserts that politicians and government officials are motivated by self interest and that their actions can be analyzed and even predicted by applying economic tools to political science. Buchanan cofounded the Thomas Jefferson Center for Studies in Political Economy with G. Warren Nutter, AB'44, AM'48, PhD'49 (Economics), and the Center for Study of Public Choice with economist Gordon Tullock, JD'47. During his half-century career, Buchanan served on the faculty of the University of Tennessee, Florida State University, the University of Virginia, UCLA, Virginia Polytechnic University, and George Mason University. He also was a senior fellow at libertarian research organization the Cato Institute. In lectures, articles, and more than 30 books, Buchanan championed public-choice theory and constitutional economics, arguing for smaller government, lower deficits, and fewer regulations, ideas that became prevalent in Ronald Reagan's conservative agenda. On receiving the Nobel Prize, Buchanan said it highlighted his "sometimes lonely and mostly losing battle of ideas ... to bring academic economists' opinions in line with those of the man on the street. My task has been to 'uneducate' the economists."

Leslie G. Freeman Jr.

Leslie G. Freeman Jr., AB'54, AM'61, PhD'64 (Anthropology), professor emeritus of anthropology and a leading scholar of Paleolithic Spain, died December 14 in Portland, Oregon. He was 77. Freeman taught for a year at Tulane University before returning as a faculty member to Chicago, where he remained until his 2000 retirement. Freeman participated in many important developments in American archaeology, including presenting paleontology as a collaborative enterprise, forming "New Archaeology," and recruiting US workers for Paleolithic research. He carried out two major excavations in Cantabria (at Cueva Morín and El Juyo) with his longtime collaborator and close friend, Joaquín González Echegaray, with whom he cofounded the Institute for Prehistoric Investigations and the Instituto para Investigacions Prehistoricas, which were incorporated in the United States and Spain, respectively. The Morín excavation is credited as the first modern, interdisciplinary project in Cantabrian Spain. Freeman coauthored seven books and four monographs and edited six volumes in Spanish and English. Former student Lawrence Guy Straus, AB'71, AM'72, PhD'75 (Anthropology), said, "He was much loved not only by his students but also by many citizens of Santander [Spain], for his bonhomie, generosity, gregariousness, joie de vivre, enthusiasm for archeology, and passion for life. He was a big man in all respects."

Michael Conant

Michael Conant, AM'46, PhD'49 (Economics), JD'51, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, died December 7 in Kensington, California. He was 88. Born Misha Cohen in Peoria, Illinois, Conant served in the Army during World War II and then attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, earning a bachelor's in economics. At UChicago, Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, AM'33, served as one of his doctoral examiners. In 1954 Conant joined the faculty of UC Berkeley's business school. An obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle praised Conant's excellence as a teacher and his expertise in antitrust economics, law, and economic regulation, noting that Conant was esteemed for his meticulous scholarship, intellectual integrity, and willingness to challenge conventional wisdom on whatever subject he studied. Conant continued his scholarly endeavors after his 1991 retirement, publishing numerous journal articles and several books, including The Constitution and Economic Regulation: Objective Theory and Critical Commentary (Transaction Publishers, 1998).

Carolyn MacKenzie

Carolyn MacKenzie, AM'46 (Comparative Human Development), died October 4, 2012, in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was 90. She received her bachelor's degree from Northwestern University, her master's degree in psychology from the University of Chicago, and her doctorate in human development from the University of Maryland. A clinical psychologist in Washington, DC, she began her practice in the late 1950s and retired in 1996. She also worked as a psychologist for the Peace Corps interviewing potential candidates for overseas posts and for Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland, the NIH, the Peace Corps, the National Cathedral, the Department of Labor, the Community for Creative Nonviolence Women's Homeless Shelter, the DC Institute of Mental Hygiene, and Eckerd College. She was a political activist in the civil rights movement and volunteered at low-cost clinics and at the DC Shelter for Homeless Women. In retirement she was active in the Eckerd Academy of Senior Professionals and with Community Action Stops Abuse.

Setsuko "Suki" Matsunaga Nishi

Setsuko "Suki" Matsunaga Nishi, PhD'63 (Sociology), professor emerita of sociology at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, died November 18, 2012, in Mabou, Nova Scotia, Canada. She was 91. Born in Los Angeles, Nishi was a classically trained pianist and a Phi Beta Kappa member at the University of Southern California before being relocated to a Japanese internment camp at the Santa Anita Assembly Center in 1942. Five months later Nishi was granted leave to enroll at Washington University, St. Louis, where she received both a bachelor's and master's degree in sociology. While at UChicago, Nishi organized community forums at Parkway Community House, a settlement house directed by the African American sociologist Horace R. Cayton. There she helped found the Chicago Resettlers Committee, a social-service agency now known as the Japanese American Service Committee. From 1965 until her retirement in 1999, Nishi served as a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, teaching the first courses on Asian American Studies there. Nishi served for three decades on the New York State Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights, including six years as chair. She also was a longtime member of the Japanese American Citizens League. A member of the National Advisory Council of the Center for Women Policy Studies in Washington, DC, and a member of the board of directors of United Way of New York City, in 1989 she cofounded the Asian American Federation, serving as its first board president. From 1998 on, she served as principal investigator of the Japanese American Life Course Study, a large-scale investigation into the long-term effects of wartime incarceration on Japanese Americans. Among her many honors, Nishi received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Asian American Studies in 2007 and Japan's Order of the Rising Sun in 2009.

Robert L. Hassenger

Robert L. Hassenger, PhD'65 (Comparative Human Development), died November 30, 2012, in Albany, New York. He was 75. Known as a pioneer in the creation of distance learning, he helped shape State University of New York-Empire State College, where he remained an active professor emeritus until his death. In 1965 Hassenger joined the University of Notre Dame, his undergraduate alma mater, as an assistant professor of sociology and published The Shape of Catholic Higher Education (University of Chicago Press, 1967). Three years later he became director of Notre Dame's Office for Education Research. Hassenger joined the fledgling SUNY-Empire State College as an associate professor in the Genesee Valley Center in 1972; two years later he served as the founding associate dean of the Niagara Frontier Center in Buffalo, where he became acting dean and then dean in 1976. Soon Hassenger moved to Saratoga Springs as special assistant to the academic vice president and was a founding faculty member of the Center for Distance Learning in 1979. He spent the rest of his career there, serving in such roles as professor and coordinator of social sciences. He retired in 2004 but continued to offer online courses. Hassenger wrote more than 130 book chapters, academic journal articles, book reviews, course guides for distance learning, and articles in lay publications, including the New Republic, Saturday Review, and Commonweal. He also served as editor of the scholarly journals Sociological Analysis and Sociology of Education.

Nancy L. Lawrence

Nancy L. Lawrence, AM'46 (Social Sciences), died in San Francisco on November 20, 2012. She received her bachelor's degree from Goucher College in Baltimore. While at the University, she was part of the newly formed Great Books seminar, developed by Mortimer Adler and Robert Huchins. In San Francisco, where she moved after graduation, she married Philip Rutter Lawrence, AB'40, JD'42. An avid biker, she led bike trips through Europe and Canada for the Experiment in International Living. She supported many causes, including the American Youth Hostels, the Society for Community Work of the Unitarian Church, the Sierra Club, Open Hand, and Larkin Street Youth Services.

Henry R. Winkler

Henry R. Winkler, PhD'47 (History), died on December 26, 2012 in Mason, Ohio. He was 96. He received his undergraduate and master's degrees at the University of Cincinnati. In 1947, after earning his doctorate, Winkler joined the faculty of Rutgers University; the same year, he was discharged from the US Navy after serving as an intelligence officer in the Pacific during World War II. At Rutgers he became associate professor in 1952 and full professor in 1958, going on to chair the history department and serve as dean of the liberal arts faculty. He also helped to found Rutgers's advanced-placement program and served as chair of the College Entrance Examination Board's board of trustees and as president of the Highland Park, New Jersey, Board of Education. In 1977 Winkler was selected as the University of Cincinnati's 23rd president, the only alumnus to hold the institution's chief executive office. There, his said in an obituary in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "he was genuinely proud that he continued to teach every semester he was president and that he retained the confidence and affection of the faculty."

Joseph N. Frank

Joseph N. Frank, PhD'60 (Social Thought), died in Palo Alto, California, on March 3. He was 94. Frank studied briefly at New York University and the University of Wisconsin but did not earn a bachelor's degree. In 1942 he took an editorial job at the Bureau of National Affairs in Washington, DC, a publisher of informational journals on legislation and policy. Throughout the 1940s, he published essays and criticism in literary journals and in 1950 went to Paris on a Fulbright scholarship. Two years later he enrolled in Chicago's Committee on Social Thought. After earning his doctorate, he taught at the University of Minnesota and Rutgers, served as a professor of comparative literature at Princeton from 1966 to 1985, and finished his teaching career at Stanford. Frank is best known for his five-volume biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky, published by the Princeton University Press and frequently cited among the greatest of 20th-century literary biographies, according to a New York Times obituary. He started his Dostoevsky studies in the early 1950s, while preparing a lecture on existentialist themes in modern literature. To provide historical background, he read Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground, which influenced him so much that he decided to learn Russian. His biography project lasted decades: the first volume, The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849, was published in 1976; the last, Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time, condensed and edited by Mary Petrusewicz, was published in 2009.