Sad passing: Dean Ray von Dran
In this morning’s email from Liz Liddy:
I am very, very sad to report that Ray has passed away. Ray suffered 3 cardiac arrests today, and succumbed about 1 hour ago at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. It is so hard to believe.
It was Dean von Dran who greeted our class when I started at SU. He was full of enthusiasm and play and kindness. I never had occasion to talk to him directly, one of the downfalls of a distance program, but he somehow made me feel like I had and we’d become old friends. He looked you in the eye, even when you were one of 200 in an audience.
The most common criticism of library schools are that so many of the professors operate exclusively in theory and many have never worked in a library, or haven’t in a very long time. It’s a valid concern, I think. But, when I encountered a letter to the editor by Dean von Dran in Library Journal in which he advocated for the Syracuse Information School and the validity of a distance education - I realized that perhaps the theory is a good thing. Here was the Dean of my school reading what I, and thousands of other librarians, read and considering its contents important enough to comment on publicly. It’s not all peer-reviewed journals and writing for grants. By arguing for the importance and relevance of the Distance Program, he was fighting for me, and my future.
I wish I could have told him the story myself, but thank you, Dean von Dran, for participating in my world and providing a foundation for my career.
Tags: dean, dean von dran, education, information school, librarians, library, library science, memorial, ray von dran, school, syracuse