The 2013 Livingston Legacy Award honoring Roger Cohen, a professor emeritus of journalism at Rutgers University, was presented Wednesday, October 9, 2013, by the Livingston Alumni Association (LAA) of Rutgers University. View his award video on this page or open in a new window.

Cohen joined seven other Livingston College faculty and staff honored since 2009 for their exemplary roles in the establishment and growth of Livingston College and its mission.

Cohen, a professor emeritus of Rutgers’ School of Communication and Information (SC&I),  graduated from Rutgers College in 1965. He was a radio news and sports journalist before joining the Rutgers Radio/Television Center in 1970. He began teaching in Livingston College’s Department of Journalism and Urban Communication on a volunteer basis in 1975. He became a full-time faculty member in 1980.

From 1981 to about 2000, he chaired the Livingston College Faculty Admissions Committee, which reviewed applications from potential students referred by the university’s admissions office.

Cohen was hired to teach radio production and broadcast news writing courses, but taught many others, including the TV/radio survey course and advanced television production. When Rutgers was implementing a campus-wide cable television system, he designed a course that not only examined how TV executives develop and schedule content, but also produced student programming for the RUTV channel.

He ran the department’s internship program for 18 years. This brought him into contact with every student major because the internship was required at the time. As an administrator, he was SC&I’s acting associate dean in 1985. He also served as department chair for seven years, where he oversaw faculty, student, and curriculum growth.

In 2012 Cohen received SC&I’s first annual Journalism and Media Studies Lifetime Achievement Award.

Cohen passed away in 2022 at age 78. Read a remembrance posted on the SC&I website.

Family, friends and colleagues remembered William Robert (“Bob”) Jenkins, Livingston College’s dean from 1977 to 1990, at a memorial held Wednesday, March 9, 2016, at the Life Sciences Building Atrium on the Busch campus of Rutgers University.<span class="wp-more-tag mce-wp-more" style="Lucida Grande', Verdana,

Jenkins died November 23, 2015, at age 88. He had served at Rutgers for more than 50 years, as a biology professor, college dean and director of the Health Professions Office. Read more about his remarkable life and career.

The celebration included the sharing of stories, memories, experiences and photos of an amazing man who lived life to its fullest.

Seth M. Scheiner, a professor emeritus of history at Rutgers University and a founding faculty member at Rutgers’ Livingston College, died Nov. 3, 2015, at age 82.

Professor Scheiner had taught history for 36 years, from 1962 to 1968 at Temple University, then from 1968 to 1998 at Rutgers.

His colleague at Livingston College, Gordon Schochet, remembered Scheiner as one of the original planners of Livingston. The college opened in 1969 as a co-educational undergraduate college with a progressive curriculum and a goal of attracting underrepresented students.

Scheiner “taught urban and African-American history and was, in fact, the first person at Rutgers to work in the latter field,” Schochet said. “As a Caucasian, he did eventually encounter some objections and hostility but went on to supervise the first dissertations in history at Rutgers in African-American history and/or by African-American graduate students.”

Robert W. Snyder, an associate professor of journalism and American studies at Rutgers-Newark and a 1977 graduate of Livingston College, remembered Scheiner as part of “a very interesting and encouraging environment” in Livingston’s history department.

Scheiner had a “gentle and kind” sense of humor and was a “mensch” who consistently supported civil liberties at Livingston and at the larger Rutgers University, said Norman Markowitz, associate professor of history at Rutgers who had worked with Scheiner since 1971.

“Seth was a kind, warm, gentle, person who served his students and the university with great distinction and dignity,” said Ronald L. Becker, head of Special Collections and University Archives at Rutgers.

“He was a thoroughly decent man and a fine colleague, and, whatever the circumstances, I always enjoyed being with him and left feeling better about the world,” said Karl Morrison, a colleague of Scheiner’s in the History Department and the Lessing professor emeritus of history and poetics at Rutgers.

Scheiner is survived by his wife of 30 years, Eveline Scheiner; two sons and two daughters-in-law, Jeffrey and Robin Scheiner, and Adam Scheiner and Lana Faye Taradash; a sister, Martha Lederer; a stepdaughter, Ellen Goldstein and her husband, Allan; a stepson, Evan Shurak, and his girlfriend, Sarah Wilson; and seven grandchildren, Amy, Matthew, Madeline, Amelia, Noah, Carly and Brooke. He was laid to rest on Nov. 5, 2015. Memorial contributions may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association.

Photos of Seth Scheiner: (top) Courtesy of Scheiner family; (bottom) From Livingston College’s 1981 yearbook, The Last.

Union County, New Jersey, on July 29, 2013, dedicated its new county building to the late Colleen Laura Fraser, an advocate for people with disabilities and a 1974 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University.

Fraser was one of the heroes of United Airlines Flight 93 who kept their plane from becoming another weapon of destruction on September 11, 2001; she was 51.

Flight 93 crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. All 40 passengers were killed.

The dedication of the $11 million Colleen Fraser Building, at 300 North Ave. East, Westfield, occurred on what would have been Fraser’s 63rd birthday.

Fraser, an advocate for people with disabilities for 20 years, served on the New Jersey Developmental Disabilities Council for more than 11 years. She was appointed chair of the council by New Jersey Governor James Florio in 1990 and served in that position for five years. She also served as the director of the Union County Office for the Disabled from 1985 to 1988.

The Livingston Alumni Association (LAA) posthumously honored Fraser at the 2006 Distinguished Alumni Awards. Watch the LAA’s video tribute to her (1 minute, 33 seconds), embedded on this page, or open in a new window.

Read more about Fraser from The Star-Ledger‘s coverage of the building dedication and from her obituary.

Photos of Colleen Fraser: (top) Courtesy of the Fraser family; (bottom) From the 1974 Livingston College yearbook, We the People. 

Livingston and Rutgers faculty, staff, alumni and friends paid tribute to Edward G. Ortiz, one of the pioneering professors in the beginnings and development of Livingston College, at a memorial program on December 2, 2010, at the Brower Commons, College Avenue Campus, in New Brunswick.  (View photos from the memorial.)

In May 2009 the Livingston Alumni Association (LAA) honored Professor Ortiz with the Livingston Legacy Award in recognition of the key role he played in the establishment and growth of Livingston College and its mission, and contributions to the overall Rutgers and global communities. 

The LAA named Ortiz as an Honorary Alumnus in April 1994.

The memorial program was sponsored by Friends of Ed Ortiz, The Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, The Rutgers Center for Latino Arts and Culture, The Rutgers Vice President’s Office for Academic and Public Partnerships, and the Livingston Alumni Association. Ortiz died on March 13, 2010.

Wells Hamilton Keddie, Professor Emeritus of Labor Studies and Employment Relations and Livingston College Fellow, was posthumously honored on March 20, 2018, with the Livingston Legacy Award, celebrating his key role in the establishment and growth of Livingston College.

Keddie passed away on April 1, 2006, at age 80.

In an interview for the 2018 award, Keddie’s wife, Mary Gibson, said that she and her husband, among other Livingston College faculty members, operated in “a very democratic community” that was disrupted by Rutgers University’s reorganization in the early 1980s.

“Wells inspired his students, and he was inspired by them,” Gibson said.

“The ranks of the labor movement in New Jersey, in New York and Pennsylvania and around the country are filled with Wells’s former students,” she said. “I think he would consider that one of his major contributions, that his students actually went into the work of the labor movement.”

Keddie was well-known for being outspoken about workers’ rights, animal rights and social justice. Even after his 2005 retirement from active teaching, Keddie regularly visited classes in the Labor Studies Department, particularly an introductory level class that he helped to shape.

Keddie was a stalwart in the faculty union, the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT), serving in virtually every leadership capacity, including several terms as president.

At the time of his death, he was serving as vice president of the AAUP’s New Jersey State Conference.

Keddie was the first director of Bachelor of Science in Labor Studies degree at Livingston College, according to a history of Rutgers’ Institute of Management and Labor Relations (.PDF file), which lists the Labor Studies bachelor’s program as starting in 1969, though Keddie said that it was 1972.

An ardent advocate of animal rights, and an enemy of class, race, gender, and other systems of inequality, Keddie often described himself as “still pointed in my chosen direction and fighting like hell to get there.”

In addition to his wife, Keddie was survived by a daughter, Heather S. Keddie; a son, Hamilton Keddie; a brother, Douglas Keddie; grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews, nieces, grandnieces and grandnephews.

Norman Markowitz, a Rutgers history professor, remembered Keddie as “a true working-class educator.”

“More than half a century ago, as a graduate student at the University of California, he refused to sign the anticommunist ‘loyalty oath’ that the state Legislature had passed,” Markowitz wrote for the People’s World website in 2006. “They never really got Wells, although they kept on trying, at Penn State where he was fired in spite of mass protests, and even at Rutgers. At Rutgers he played a leading role in building the American Association of University Professors and in training students who went out and became organizers and leaders of the labor movement for three decades.”

Bottom photo: Keddie, left, at a May Day picnic at his house in Piscataway, NJ, with Arsenia Reilly (center), an undergraduate student who went on to work in the labor movement, and Rutgers History Professor Norman Markowitz.

Sgt. Francis T. (Frank) Carvill (LC’75) of Carlstadt, NJ, 51, a member of the New Jersey National Guard serving in Iraq, was killed June 4, 2004, when his convoy was ambushed by a roadside explosive device in the Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad. He was one of five soldiers killed in that attack, during which three other New Jerseyans were wounded. 

In 2004 the Livingston Alumni Association of Rutgers University posthumously honored Carvill as a Livingston College Distinguished Alumnus.

Sgt. Carvill and the other soldier, Spc. Christopher Duffy, 26, were the first New Jersey National Guard servicemen to die in the Iraq war. The two men, from the 112th Field Artillery unit based in Lawrenceville, Mercer County, were part of Task Force Baghdad, made up primarily of elements of the Texas-based 1st Cavalry Division, said division spokesman Lt. Col. James Hutton. Two other New Jersey National Guardsmen were killed in a similar ambush the following day.

According to his sister, Peggy Ligouri, Carvill had survived both terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and 2001. On September 11, 2001, he was working in the North Tower as a paralegal for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He was helping a co-worker with a disability get into a van to go to a court appearance in Brooklyn when he saw the first plane hit the building.

Carvill was the second Livingston College alumnus killed in Iraq. Seth Dvorin (LC’02) was killed March 3, 2004.

• Star-Ledger coverage
  • Friend, Patriot, Good Man to All
  • Fallen Heroes
• New York Times coverage
• Associated Press coverage (via Newsday and Home News Tribune)

William Robert (“Bob”) Jenkins, Livingston College’s dean from 1977 to 1990, died November 23, 2015, at age 88. He had served at Rutgers for more than 50 years, as a biology professor, college dean and director of the Health Professions Office. (A memorial service was held Wednesday, March 9, 2016, at Rutgers’ Busch campus. See the complete information here.)

Jenkins, of Monroe Township, New Jersey, had lived in Hunterdon County and later Piscataway, before moving to Monroe in 2013. Born in Hertford, North Carolina, he was a corpsman in the United States Navy during World War II, Jenkins earned a bachelor of science (B.S.) degree from the College of William and Mary, a master of science (M.S.) from the University of Virginia, and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Maryland.

Jenkins’ philosophies as Livingston College dean can be gleaned from his letters to the graduating class, published most years in the college yearbook. In 1978, his first year as dean, he highlighted Livingston College’s “truly outstanding faculty” and “unusually diverse student body” as benefits of an education at the college. Two years later, he noted that students’ focus had turned from activism to career interests.

In 1980, Rutgers reorganized and combined the faculties of three undergraduate colleges in New Brunswick — Livingston, Rutgers and Douglass colleges. Jenkins’ covered the reorganization in his letters in 1981, 1982 and 1983, in which he respectively wrote of Livingston College fighting the reorganization, lamenting that the change “highly limited” Livingston’s freedom, and then tying Livingston’s uniqueness to facets not affected by the reorganization, such as admissions, graduation requirements, and student life operations.

“Make no mistakes and no apologies, Livingston College has been a success,” Jenkins told the class of 1982. “We are not as successful as many of us had dreamed, but I suppose that would be a truly rare occurrence. On the other hand, we are far more successful than many of our detractors thought we could ever be and more successful than many of them would ever admit. So little they know.”

According to a 1985 New York Times article, Jenkins had come to appreciate the 1980 reorganization, citing as an example the combined biology department of Livingston, Rutgers and Douglass colleges “[becoming] a department with 100 professors and a good chance at more research funds and better graduate students.” Such changes increased Rutgers’ reputation in New Jersey and increased the value of a Rutgers degree, Jenkins told the Times.

In the same year, Jenkins urged graduates to boost the “visibility and reputation” of Livingston College by promoting the college rather than the larger university.

Two months before he left the deanship in 1990, Jenkins told a student newspaper, The Daily Targum, that some Livingston innovations — such as co-ed dormitories, new academic departments such as anthropology, computer science, and journalism, and a diverse student population — had become commonplace at Rutgers. “The other colleges have adopted so much of Livingston that they are no longer distinct from us — we do not get the credit for that.”

Jenkins “preside[d] on the cooling of the ambiguous Livingston missions, and the diminution of the college’s autonomy and its isolation as well,” remembered Gerald Pomper, a Rutgers Board of Governors professor emeritus of political science. Pomper said that Jenkins “handled this unenviable task with decency and grace, but glory was neither possible at the time nor part of Bob’s character.”

Robert W. Snyder was a student at Livingston College from 1973 to 1977, just before Jenkins became college dean. Jenkins had joined the college’s planning committee in 1968, a year before the college opened, and in 1977 was the college’s associate dean and dean of instruction. “I have fond memories of Bob Jenkins as a dean who loved the college and fought for it. He took over after a period of conflict and uncertainty about our future during the Mesthene deanship, and won over students with his belief Livingston College was a good school with an important role to play in Rutgers and the wider world.

“His courses in environmental science were highly praised. I have few regrets about my Livingston education, but one is that — as a double major in history and urban communications — I did not have room in my schedule to study with him,” said Snyder, an associate professor of journalism and American studies at Rutgers-Newark.

“I vividly recall my conversations with him about our shared love of the outdoors, and his belief that Livingston needed better recreation facilities for students—especially those who remained on campus over the weekend,” Snyder said. “In the best spirit of Livingston, Dean Jenkins had a friendly and egalitarian manner. I will always remember him with great warmth and fondness.”

Bill Bowman, a 1982 Livingston College graduate, reflected on Jenkins’ tenure in 2012 in response to a Rutgers magazine article about the college’s history. Bowman, a former president of the Livingston Alumni Association, called Jenkins “one of the most forceful defenders of Livingston College and one of the most loved deans the college had in its too-short life. Dean Jenkins’ open-door policy and his genuine interest in the college’s students endeared him to thousands of future agents of change.”

Jenkins’ “devotion to Livingston College was steadfast, his love of it deep, and his support crucial,” said Jerome Aumente, a Rutgers distinguished professor emeritus of journalism who worked with Jenkins at Livingston College.

“The respect he brought to the ongoing conversation about Livingston and its multiple missions was so important as the university puzzled over what to do about that enterprise across the Raritan,” Aumente said. “His voice as a respected member of the biological and medical sciences carried added weight at [the Rutgers administration building] Old Queens. His championing of the physician’s assistant program was brave and imaginative as lesser minds thought otherwise about opening doors and social change.”

Outside of his professional career, Jenkins founded Boy Scout Troop 1969 in Stanton, New Jersey, and served as Scoutmaster for several years. He served as a president of his local Board of Education and Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), Little League coach, and church school teacher. He travelled five continents, and spent many summer days off Sandy Hook fishing for “Moby Fluke.” 

Jenkins was the son of the late William Herman and Dorothy (Perrow) Jenkins, and brother of the late Dorothy (Dot) Jenkins-Biggs. He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Mary (Earhart) Jenkins; two sons and two daughters-in-law, William Brian and Penny Jenkins, and Robert Edward and Marilyn Jenkins; two daughters and one son-in-law, Mary Ellen and Joe Duffy, and Linda Burns; and seven grandchildren, Giovanna, Dana, Sofia, Kira, Alix, Francis, and Mary Rose.

Donations may be directed to the Rutgers University Foundation, the Robert Jenkins Memorial Fund.

Photos of Jenkins: (top) Undated, courtesy of the Jenkins family; (bottom) From the Livingston College 1977 yearbook, The Rock, Volume II.

We remember some of the many notable administrators, faculty members, staff members, and alumni who made a difference at Livingston College and in the Livingston alumni community. Brief notes and links to profiles with additional available information are included.

Jerome Aumente	Albert E. Blumberg	Roger Cohen	Lora (Dee) Garrison	Melvin L. Gary

Administrators, Faculty, and Staff:

• Jerome Aumente (1937-2023, age 85): Founder of journalism departments at Rutgers’ Livingston College and School of Communication and Information. Founder and director of Rutgers’ Urban Communications Teaching and Research Center and Journalism Resources Institute. Recipient of Livingston Legacy Award (2011).
• Albert E. Blumberg (d. 1997, age 91): Philosophy professor; Official in the Communist and Democratic parties.
• George Warren Carey (1927-2012, age 85): Acting dean of Livingston College from 1973-1974. [No photo available.]
• Roger Cohen, RC’65 (1943-2022, age 78): Journalism professor at Livingston College.
• Lora (Dee) Garrison (1934-2009, age 74): Professor of history and women’s studies.
• Melvin L. Gary (1938-2015, age 76): Psychology professor.

Hilda Hidalgo	Richard F. Hixson	W. Robert Jenkins	Wells Hamilton Keddie	Ernest A. Lynton

• Hilda Hidalgo (1928-2009, age 81): Chair of the Department of Urban Studies and Community Development at Livingston College. Founder of several community organizations. Gay-rights pioneer. Recipient of the Rutgers Presidential Award for Public Service.

  • In 2010 the Newark Public Library held a memorial for Hidalgo. Her donated papers are available for review at the same library.
  • In 2010 the City of Newark renamed a street for Hidalgo. Read the (Star-Ledger) article, or see a PDF copy with additional photos.

• Richard F. Hixson (d. 2003, age 71): Chairman of the Livingston College/Rutgers journalism department. Namesake of a scholarship for undergraduate students in Rutgers’ School of Communication and Information.
• W. Robert Jenkins (d. 2015, age 88): Dean of Livingston College from 1977-1990.
• Wells Hamilton Keddie (1925-2006, age 80): Professor Emeritus of Labor Studies and Employment Relations and Livingston College Fellow.
• Lynne M. Kellermann (d. 1986): Director of the Livingston College Honors Program. [No photo available.]
• Ernest A. Lynton (d. 1998, age 71): Dean of Livingston College from 1965-1973.

Patrick McCreary	W. Carey McWilliams	Emmanuel G. Mesthene	Edward G. Ortiz	Henry A. Plotkin

• Patrick McCreary (LC’75, MGSA’79) (d. 2016, age 67): Theater technical director at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and formerly at Livingston College.
• Wilson Carey McWilliams (1933-2005, age 71): Political science professor and essayist. Recipient of Livingston Legacy Award (2015, posthumous).
• Emmanuel George Mesthene (d. 1990, age 69): Dean of Livingston College from 1974-1977.
• Edward G. Ortiz (1931-2010, age 78): Retired associate professor and chair of the Rutgers Department of Community Development. Recipient of the Livingston Legacy Award (2009).
• Henry A. (Hank) Plotkin (d. 2017, age 74): Executive Director of the New Jersey State Employment and Training Commission; formerly Assistant Professor of Political Science at Livingston College.
• Felice C. Ronca (d. 1996, age 43): Assistant Dean for Curriculum at Livingston College. [No photo available.]

Seth Scheiner	David C. Schwartz	Winston E. Thompson	Paula Van Riper

• Seth Scheiner (d. 2015, age 82): History professor and planner of Livingston College.
• David C. Schwartz (d. 2022, age 83). Political science professor at Livingston College.
• Winston Edna Thompson (1933-2016, age 82): Associate Dean of Student Affairs at Livingston College.
• Paula Van Riper (1947-2015, age 67): Rutgers Assistant Dean and Director of Advising in the Office of Academic Services; formerly Livingston College Assistant Dean for Academic Policy.

Alumni:

(Seven of the 37 Rutgers graduates who died in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had earned Livingston College degrees. Read about all 37 of the graduates on Barbara Preston’s website.)

Kevin A.B. Appuzio	William S. Bauer Jr.	Frank Carvill	Thomas F. Daley	Michael A. Davidson

• Kevin Anthony Bernardo Appuzio, LC’06 (1984-2006, age 21): Emergency medical technician killed in a house fire rescue mission. Recipient of Livingston Alumni Association’s Seth Dvorin Young Alumni Award (2009, posthumous) and Rutgers University Alumni Federation’s Edward J. Bloustein Award for Community Service (2006, posthumous).
• William S. (Bill) Bauer Jr., LC’86, GSNB’89 (1964-2013, age 49): Former Livingston Alumni Association president.
• Frank Carvill, LC’75 (d. 2004, age 51): New Jersey National Guard member, killed in the Iraqi conflict; survivor of World Trade Center terrorist attacks in 1993 and 2001. Livingston College Distinguished Alumnus (2004, posthumous).
• Thomas F. Daley, LC’75 (d. 2015, age 61): District Attorney, attorney, adjunct professor of law. Livingston College Distinguished Alumnus (2002).
• Michael A. Davidson, LC’97 (d. 2001, age 27): Victim of 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks. From Old Bridge, NJ. Equity trader for Cantor Fitzgerald. The Zeta Psi fraternity held a memorial service at Homecoming on October 20, 2001.

Jayceryll M. de Chavez	Seth Jeremy Dvorin	Colleen L. Fraser	Riki E. Jacobs	Patrick Konan Kouassi

• Jayceryll Malabuyoc de Chavez, LC’99, School of Business-New Brunswick’99 (d. 2001, age 24): Victim of 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks. From Carteret, NJ. Portfolio analysist for Fiduciary Trust Co. Founding member of Rutgers chapter of the Delta Chi fraternity.
• Seth Jeremy Dvorin, LC’02 (d. 2004, age 24): U.S. Army first sergeant killed in Iraq in 2004. Namesake of the Seth Dvorin Distinguished Young Alumni Award.
• Colleen L. Fraser, LC’74 (d. 2001, age 51): Hero of United Airlines Flight 93 (9/11/2001 terrorist attacks); advocate for people with disabilities. Livingston College Distinguished Alumna (2006, posthumous).
• Riki E. Jacobs, LC’80 (1957-2009, age 51): Executive director of Hyacinth AIDS Foundation; namesake of Livingston Pride Award.  Livingston College Distinguished Alumna (2000).
• Patrick Konan Kouassi, LC’06 (1981-2021, age 40): “Mr. R.U.” in 2003. Drug safety associate in the pharmaceutical industry.

Brendan Mark Lang	Christina Yuna Lee	James A. Martello	Jon A. Perconti Jr.	Gary Scott Pfeffer

• Brendan Mark Lang, LC’83 (d. 2001, age 30): Victim of 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks. From Red Bank, NJ. Project manager for StructureTone, Inc.
• Christina Yuna Lee, LC’08 (d. 2022, age 35): Artist and music producer.
• James A. Martello, LC’83 (d. 2001, age 41): Victim of 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks. Worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. Former Scarlet Knight middle linebacker from Rumson, NJ (formerly of Montville).
• Jon A. Perconti Jr., LC’93 (1969-2001, age 32): Victim of 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks. From Hoboken, NJ. Worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in World Trade Center, Tower 1, 104th Floor. Perconti’s wife, Tammy, gave birth to the couple’s daughter in December 2001.
• Gary Scott Pfeffer, LC’77 (1955-2018, age 62): Founder of Men’s Coming Out Group and longtime activist at The Pride Center of New Jersey.

Scott M. Schertzer	Paul Taub	Derek Lamont Young

• Scott M. Schertzer, LC’97, SMLR’97 (1972-2001, age 28): Victim of 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks. From Edison, NJ. Worked in human resources for Cantor Fitzgerald, World Trade Center, Tower 1, 104th Floor.
• Paul Taub, LC’74 (1952-2021, age 68). Flutist and pioneer of new music.
• Derek Lamont Young, RC’87 (1964-2020, age 55). Vice President of the Livingston Alumni Association.

Wilson Carey McWilliams (1933–2005), known as Carey, was posthumously honored in 2015 with the Livingston Legacy Award for his role as a distinguished political scientist throughout most of Livingston College’s history.

McWilliams was a political scientist at Livingston College and Rutgers University for 35 years.

McWilliams was born in Santa Monica, California. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1955, then served in the 11th Airborne Division of the United States Army from 1955–1961. He earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees at the same university. He was also active in the early stages of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the student activist group SLATE.

Prior to teaching at Rutgers he taught at Oberlin College and Brooklyn College. He was also a visiting professor at Yale University, Harvard University and Haverford College. He came to Yale in spring 1969 with a timely and provocative seminar on “American Radical Thought.”

McWilliams was the recipient of the John Witherspoon Award for Distinguished Service to the Humanities, conferred by the New Jersey Committee for the Humanities, and also served as a Vice-President of the American Political Science Association.

McWilliams was the author of several books, including The Idea of Fraternity in America (1973, University of California Press), for which he won the National Historical Society prize in 1974. In this book, McWilliams argued that there was an “alternative tradition” to the dominant liberal tradition in America, which he variously traced through the thought of the Puritans, the Anti-Federalists, and various major and minor literary figures such as Hawthorne, Melville, Twain and Ellison. He argued that this tradition drew philosophical inspiration from ancient Greek and Christian sources manifested in an emphasis upon community and fraternity, which was properly the means to achieving a form of civic liberty. McWilliams was also a prolific essayist.

McWilliams died on March 29, 2005, at age 71. He had been married for 38 years to the psychoanalyst and author Nancy Riley McWilliams. Carey and Nancy have two daughters, the musician Helen McWilliams, and Susan McWilliams, an associate professor of politics.

McWilliams "really cared about individual students," his spouse Nancy Riley McWilliams tells us in the embedded video. "He made the ideas of long-dead thinkers be alive and relevant to students”>(You may also open the video in a new window.)