Photo by Michael Bryant
Dr. Reece on the Gazette cover, June 1994.
Photo by Michael Bryant
Dr. Reece on the Gazette cover, June 1994.
Dr. Jack E. Reece, a historian of modern Europe who was noted both for his teaching and his prescient research into ethnic issues within European nations, died of a heart attack at Graduate Hospital on August 31, at the age of 56.
Retired for the past two years because of illness, Dr. Reece had been active on the faculty for over 25 years. A Phi Beta Kappa at Michigan, where he had taken his B.A. in 1963 and his M.A. in 1964, Dr. Reece had studied at Columbia and at McGill, and was completing his dissertation for the Ph.D. at Stanford when he became an instructor here in 1968. With the award of his doctorate he was made assistant professor in 1971. The importance of his research was summed up in a 1974 Pennsylvania Gazette cover storyby Mary Ann Meyers, who said, "His book, The Bretons Against France: Ethnic Minority Nationalism in 20th Century Brittany, was published that year [1971] by the University of North Carolina Press. Al Reiber calls it 'a pioneering work that never got the full recognition it deserved because, at the time it was published, scholars thought the study of small nationalisms was a marginal area.' Now, of course, the toll taken by nationalistic rivalries in the former Yugslavia suggest that Reece had hold of an imporant and persistent threat in the continental tapestry." In retirement he was at work on a book on Fascism, the Mafia and the emergence of Sicilian separatism.
Dr. Reece won the Lindback Award in 1973, and he was honored by the College of General Studies as "Teacher of the Year" in 1989. He held ACLS and NEH, and was renowned as a guest lecturer both here and abroad.
He was also known for his activities as vice president of the Penn AAUP chapter during a heated period in the 'eighties when open expression was a rising issue on the nation's campuses, and for the many other varied forms of University service he took on over the yearshistorian of Phi Beta Kappa, member and chair of the Mellon Humanities Coordinating Committee, member of the Research Foundation Committee, and member of the 1985 Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Racial and Sexual Harassment and the later Council Commmittee on Sexual Harassment, to name a few.
Dr. Reece is survived by his mother, Beulah Reece; four brothers, Ron, Tom, John and David; a sister, Janet; and a large extended family. Contributions have been suggested for the Carmelo Terlingo Cancer Fund in Philadelphia 19101-2589 or South County Community Services in Vickburg, Michigan. The Penn history department also plans a graduate scholarship fund in his honor; details are available from Dr. Lynn Lees at lhlees@mail.sas, or 898-8444.
John Haines Ware III, the 1930 Wharton alumnus and longtime Penn trustee for whom Ware College House is named, died on July 29 at the age of 88, after a long bout with cancer.
Mr. Ware spent the early part of his career in varied business pursuitsrunning a cabinet factory, a candy factory and a movie theater, among other things. In 1944 Mr. Ware founded Penn Fuel Gas Co. in Oxford, Pa., which he headed for 45 years while also operating a string of weekly newspapers in Chester County and in Maryland. From 1961 to 1984 he was also chairman of the board of the American Water Works Co. in Voorhees.
After serving as burgess of Oxford, he entered the larger political arena as a state senator in 1961, and from 1970 to 1975 he was a member of the U.S. Congress, representing the Ninth Congressional District. He was also a member of the Republican National Finance Committee and chairman of the state GOP Finance Committee.
Mr. Ware received an honorary degree from the University of Pennsylvania at the 1978 Commencement, where he was cited for over fifty years' dedication to the institution as "class president, trustee, and an ever-interested alumnus. A Mask and Wigger, whose numerous student activities included literary societies, the arts and the student newspaper, his post-graduate affiliations have been as diversified as they have been copious." In addition to his Penn affiliations, he was on the boards of Lincoln and Widener Universities, Ursinus College, the Pennsylvania College of Optometry, West Nottingham Academy and the Elwyn Institute, and was active in numerous civic organizations including the Boy Scouts and Rotary."
Mr. Ware is survived by his wife, Marian S. Ware; sons John H., IV, and Paul W.; daughters, Marilyn W. Lewis and Carol W. Gates; 12 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Dr. Hobstetter, c. 1968
Photo by Frank Ross, courtesy of the University Archives
Dr. John N. Hobstetter, the first director of the Laboratory for Research in the Structure of Matter (LRSM) and a central figure in academic planning of the University during major changes that took place in the 'seventies, died on August 30, the day after a stroke from which he did not recover consciousness. He was 80.
A 1935 alumnus of MIT, where he took his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, Dr. Hobstetter did graduate work in physical chemistry there, but in 1941 he moved to Harvard to pursue his doctorate in physical metallurgy. While earning his degree, he was a teaching fellow conducting undergraduate courses in physical and process metallurgybut concurrently, during the intensive war years of 1942-46, he was engaged as technical director of a Harvard-based federal research project on the behavior of materials exposed to extreme conditions. He won two citations for his work there.
Awarded his S.D. in 1946, Dr. Hobstetter became an instructor and then assistant professor of engineering science at Harvard, teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses until 1952 when he joined Bell Laboratories as a consultant on theoretical metallurgy and as the metallurgy unit's liaison to the Labs' physics groups.
Penn's Engineering school brought him back to academia in 1958 as associate professor of metallurgy, promoting him to full professor the following yearwhen he also won an award for distinguished undergraduate teaching. Meanwhile, he took part in the planning of a new kind of institute, one of four in the nation that ARPA (the Advanced Research Projects Agency) had designed in cooperation with scientists in academethe Laboratory for Research in the Structure of Matter, devoted to the materials sciences and embracing solid-state physics, metallurgy, and inorganic and physical chemistry.
In 1960 he was named LRSM's first director, and long before he completed his seven years in office LRSM had established itself as the new national model for collaborative research.
In 1967 he was named Vice Provost for Re-search, assuming also the deanship of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences the following year. Then in 1971, as Penn prepared for the massive new planning exercise that was to culminate in the "One University" project and the then record-breaking $255 Million Campaign for the Eighties, Dr. Hobstetter was named Associate Provost for Academic Planning and Budget Administration. From this post he was to oversee the evolution of responsibility center budgeting and the development of new systems to support it. He was a markedly communicative planner, writing and speaking readily to convey the new ways of budgeting and planning to academics and nonacademics alike.
"John Hobstetter was one of our great educators," said Dr. Louis Girifalco, the University Professor of Materials Science and Engineering who was one of Dr. Hobstetter's successors both as director of LRSM and as Vice Provost for Research. "In addition to his outstanding teaching and excellent scientific work, John made important, lasting contributions to the policies and organizations of the University. He had a brilliant, integrative mind that anticipated many of the changes we have seen in academe in recent years. His contributions as Director of the Laboratory for Research on Matter, Vice Provost for Research and Associate Provost greatly increased our capacity to deal with these changes. Our research policy, planning procedures and responsibility center accounting owe their existence largely to his wisdom and foresight.
"His most important characteristic," Dr. Girifalco continued, "was an absolute integrity and commitment to academic values. He believed in the idea of the University in the highest sense and acted on that belief throughout his career. He was a wonderful human being who will be sorely missed,"
Dr. Hobstetter is survived by a brother, James E. Hobstetter; a stepbrother,
George K. Gaskell; his nephews and nieces and many friends. A memorial service
is being planned at the University, and will be announced in Almanac.
Prepared with the assistance of Perry Shuler
