Faculty

Thomas Bentley Duncan, AM’61, PhD’67 (History), associate professor emeritus in history, died February 24. He was 85. A native of Brazil, Duncan was an influential scholar of Latin American and African history, known for his work on colonial Portugal and the role of Latin American nations in global economic development. He became the first director of the University’s Center for Latin American Studies in 1968, directing the master’s program for many years. He retired from the University in 1996 and remained generous to the department by including a gift in his estate to benefit the Department of History.

Philip W. Jackson, the David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Education, Psychology, and the College, died July 21 in Chicago. He was 86. An expert on education pioneer John Dewey, Jackson joined the UChicago faculty in 1955. He served in administrative roles at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools as well as dean of the Graduate School of Education and chair of the Department of Education. Jackson was involved in a number of critical research studies and influential books, such as 1962’s Creativity and Intelligence (Wiley), which concluded that a high IQ, as measured by tests, was not a mark of giftedness. He served as president of the American Educational Research Association, was a member of the National Academy of Education, and for several years edited the American Journal of Education. Jackson retired from the University in 1998.

Alumni

Harold W. Scheffler, AM‘57, PhD’63 (Anthropology), who studied fundamental patterns of kinship, died July 24 in New Haven, Connecticut. He was 83. Scheffler taught at the University of Connecticut and Bryn Mawr College before joining Yale in 1963. He stayed for 45 years as professor of anthropology before retiring in 2008 as a professor emeritus. A longtime fellow of Berkeley College, Scheffler was also a visiting professor or research fellow at institutions such as the University of Brisbane and the Free University of Berlin.