Gone But Not Forgotten
Dr. John Ogbu, professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a path-breaking scholar in the fields of minority education and identity, died in August. Ogbu is known for his work that attempted to understand how race and ethnic differences played out in educational and economic achievement. His most recent book was Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement. Archie C. Epps III, former dean of students at Harvard University, died in August. He was 66 years old. As a teaching assistant in Middle Eastern studies in the early ’60s, Epps taught a class on Black nationalism and civil rights and brought James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and Malcolm X to speak on the Harvard campus. Epps was also the assistant director of the Harvard Glee Club from 1963 to 1967. He served as dean of students from 1971 until his retirement in 1999. In that capacity, he published Harvard’s first handbook on race relations. Dr. Clark Kerr, considered a legend in higher education, died in December. He was 92. Kerr created the blueprint for public higher education in the United States while president of the University of California system in the 1950s and ’60s. As president of UC, he created a multicampus public institution that became a model for state universities across the nation. He is also credited with originating the concept that every student should be entitled to a college education regardless of ability to pay. In 1972, Congress translated that idea into what is now known as Pell Grants.
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