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KENWORTHY Eldon Gordon ("Bud")
Birth: 27 May 1935 Pasadena, Los Angeles Co., Cal.
Death: 14 Mar 1998 Walla Walla, Wash.
Notes
!PUBL
ssn 571 42 2875 issued in Cal.
Kenworthy Family Bible record, from Thomas Hull
what of obit of Eldon "bud" kenworthy, former Cornell faculty member,
of six books, wife Cynthia Witman, brother Dudley Kenworthy, sister Janet Walls, dtr
Lauren Kenworthy, 2 grandsons, younger dtr Shannon d in 1973.
internationally recognized expert in Latin American politics. d 14 mar 1998, Walla
Walla Wash, injuries from car accident, age 63 (b 1935), see
www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/98/4.9.98/obits.html
Oberlin 1956, Yale 1970 author
Eldon "Bud" Kenworthy, a former Cornell faculty member and an internationally
recognized expert in Latin American politics, died March 14, 1998, at Saint Mary
Medical Center in Walla Walla, Wash., of injuries sustained after he was accidentally
struck by an automobile. He was 63.
From 1966 to 1992 he was a member of the faculty of Cornell, where he taught Latin
American politics and served as director of undergraduate studies in the government
department. In 1970 he received Cornell's Clark Award for Excellence in Teaching. An
inspiring and devoted teacher, he is remembered by his colleagues for his insistence
that teaching and advising undergraduates be a priority even at a university known for
its research and graduate programs. He went to Whitman College as the Arnold
Distinguished Visiting Professor in 1991, and joined the faculty of the politics
department there the following year.
He received his bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in 1956 and his doctorate in
political science in 1970 from Yale University. Author of six books, including America
Americas: Myth in the Making of U.S. Policy toward Latin America, he both studied
and deeply loved the area and its people. He and his wife were involved with a
number of Ithacans in reforestation and other environmental projects in Costa Rica.
His close relationship with students became critically important during the period of
unrest that troubled many universities in the late 1960s. In 1969 at Cornell, he
addressed a gathering of 4,000 students whose leaders were urging violent tactics.
Known to the students as a young and sympathetic professor, Kenworthy cautioned
them to be "rational radicals." His influence prevailed.
Those who knew him well might still hear his warm rich voice and recall his enthusiasm
for the good life of gardens and homesteading and community. He was also a lover of
wild places, and frequently backpacked in the high country. He died surrounded by
friends.
He is survived by his wife, Cynthia Witman; his brother and sister, Dudley Kenworthy
and Janet Walls; his daughter Lauren Kenworthy; and two grandsons. His younger
daughter, Shannon, died in 1973.
A remembrance and celebration of his life will take place Monday, May 11, at 4 p.m. in
Anabel Taylor Hall, sponsored by the government department. All are invited.
From http://72.14.203.104/search?
q=cache:acDUDEYuNJUJ:www.apsanet.org/PS/june98/kenworthy.cfm++%22bud
+kenworthy%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=8
Eldon "Bud" Kenworthy
Eldon "Bud" Kenworthy died March 14, 1998, in Walla Walla, Washington, following
an automobile accident. He was 62 years old.
Bud Kenworthy was born in 1935 in Pasadena, California. He received his bachelor's
degree from Oberlin College in 1956 and his doctorate in political science from Yale
University in 1970. At the time of his death, Bud was professor of politics at Whitman
College in Walla Walla. He previously served for a quarter-century as a faculty
member with the government department at Cornell University. Over the years, among
other awards, he received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities
and from the Woodrow Wilson and Danforth Foundations. In 1970, Cornell bestowed
on him its Clark Award for the Advancement of Teaching.
Bud both studied and deeply loved Latin America and its people. He published articles
on Latin American politics in World Policy Journal, Current History, the Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, Democracy, and many other journals. He contributed chapters to
noted textbooks on Latin American politics and on American foreign policy. In 1995,
Penn State Press published his book, America/Amer|$$|Aaeicas: Myth in the Making of
U.S. Policy Toward Latin America. The book is a detailed study of popular images and
myths about Latin America and their culmination in the rhetoric of the Reagan
Administration during the 1980s.
Bud Kenworthy was long interested in how both high and low culture and the images
they generate affect the attitudes of American political leaders and the American
public toward Latin America. He began studying this issue in 1984 with his World
Policy Journal article, "Grenada as a Theater." Just prior to his untimely death, he
published a book chapter, "Nature in Latin America," which began with a discussion
of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the monster's plea to be allowed peaceful refuge
in Latin America, a plea dismissed by the scientist who described the region,
stereotypically, as uncivilized wilderness.
Over the past fifteen years, Bud Kenworthy's teaching and research interests
increasingly focused on environmental issues and on ways in which ordinary citizens
can and do understand and contribute to solving the problems of our complex
technological world. Shortly before his accident, he had returned to teaching from a
year's sabbatical leave. His activities during that year show Bud at his best as a
scholar, teacher, and political activist.
He was one of four eminent scholars invited by Miami University (OH) to lecture and
teach as part of its year-long "Latin American Celebration." Later he was also invited
to present a paper and teach Dutch graduate students and scholars associated with
the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA) in Amsterdam.
He wrote articles and book reviews for Environmental Education, Environmental
Ethics, and the LASA Forum.
Making use of his long involvement with Costa Rica, he videotaped interviews with
campesinos who have developed methods of fishing and farming that are productive
and environmentally sustainable. He was completing a video documentary and a book
on this subject at the time of his death.
As a result of these experiences with the campesinos, Bud, always an activist as well
as a scholar, became wholeheartedly engaged in the "Responsible Coffee Campaign."
This campaign is an effort by environmentalists and academics to encourage
consumers to buy coffee grown under environmentally friendly conditions on small
family farms, rather than from coffee plantations with their international, or corporate,
ownership and heavy use of pesticides.
Beginning in 1966, Bud Kenworthy was a member of the faculty of Cornell University,
where he taught Latin American politics. From 1982N87, he served as director of
undergraduate studies for Cornell's government department, a post which meant
overseeing the teaching and advising of what was usually the largest single
contingent of student majors at the university. He is remembered by his colleagues at
Cornell for his insistence that teaching and advising undergraduates be a priority,
even at a university famed for its research and graduate programs.
Bud Kenworthy's close relationship with students became critically important during
the student unrest that troubled Cornell in the 1960s. In 1969, he addressed a
gathering of 4,000 students whose leaders were urging violent tactics. Bud, known to
the students as a young and sympathetic professor, cautioned the students to be
"rational radicals." His influence prevailed.
Bud was first invited to Whitman College in 1991 to serve as the Arnold Distinguished
Visiting Professor, a one-year appointment. During that year, he and his wife, Cynthia,
grew to love the sere beauty of eastern Washington. Bud also appreciated the
opportunity to concentrate on undergraduate teaching at a respected liberal arts
college. He returned to Whitman as a full-time faculty member in 1992.
At Whitman, Bud taught courses in Latin American and comparative politics, ecology
and development, private and public leadership, and grass-roots activism. Whitman
College President Thomas Cronin eulogized him as an "enormously creative and
dedicated professor. He had a major influence on his students here, and he will be
greatly missed."
Bud Kenworthy is survived by his wife, daughter, Lauren Kenworthy, and grandsons,
Byron and Jesse Kenworthy Schaeffer.
Mary T. Hanna, Whitman College (WA)
no children with Cynthia Witman
awt Kenworthy
Parents
KENWORTHY Luther Clifford (24 Jul 1902 - 2 Jun 1980)
BLOHM Evangeline B. (1 Feb 1901 - 6 Sep 1995)
Siblings
KENWORTHY Dudley Clifford ()
KENWORTHY Janet ()
KENWORTHY Eldon Gordon ("Bud") (27 May 1935 - 14 Mar 1998)
Marriage To ----- Rosalind K. ("Rozzie") ()
Notes
Children by ----- Rosalind K. ("Rozzie")
KENWORTHY Lauren E. ()
KENWORTHY Shannon (31 May 1967 - 11 Nov 1972)
Marriage To WITMAN Cynthia ()
m. 27 Aug 1989
Notes
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