Thomas W. Evans, who chaired TC’s Board of Trustees from 1991 to 1998, passed away last June at age 82. Evans served as an adviser to U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and assisted Richard Nixon in his 1968 and 1972 campaigns. He was a partner in the New York firm of Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon and later Chief of Counsel to Andrews Kurth.

 
Richard Heffner, a recipient of TC’s Medal for Distinguished Service and husband of psychotherapist Elaine Heffner (Ed.D. ’86), passed away in December at age 88. Heffner’s pioneering talk show, “The Open Mind,” spanned nearly six decades on public television. He helped establish public television in New York City, taught for many years at Rutgers University and authored several books, including the best-selling A Documentary History of the United States. Heffner also served for 20 years as Chairman of the Classification and Rating Administration of the Motion Picture Association of America.


Francis Ianni, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Horace Mann Lincoln Institute at TC, passed away in December. He is best known for A Family Business, a study of organized crime published in 1972. While teaching at University College in Addis Ababa, Ianni studied Ethiopia’s remote nomadic cultures. During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, he served as Associate Commissioner for Research in the U.S. Office of Education.

 
James Malfetti Sr., Professor Emeritus of Health and Behavior Studies, passed away in November at age 92. Co-author of the groundbreaking 1964 text Reproduction, Sex and Preparation for Marriage, Malfetti developed Columbia‘s first undergraduate course in health and hygiene. He also was a leading authority on traffic safety. Malfetti served as Associate Director of the American Assembly, created by Columbia President Dwight D. Eisenhower to focus leading experts on major societal issues.


Frank Moretti (Ph.D. ’83), TC Professor of Communications and a leading theorist and practitioner of digital technology in education, passed away last July at age 69. Moretti co-founded and served as Executive Director of the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, which partners with all 18 schools within Columbia and more than 3,000 faculty members. In the early 1990s, as Associate Headmaster at the Dalton School, Moretti won national attention for his work with TC faculty member Robbie McClintock to wire Dalton and network it with New York City cultural institutions.


Robert Taylor (Ed.D. ’70), a digital pioneer who helped shape the National Educational Software Act of 1984 and founded TC’s Computing in Education Program, passed away in late October. Taylor also co-founded and later chaired TC’s Department of Communication, Computing & Technology in Education. An accomplished bass-baritone, Taylor sang all over the world and at TC convocations during the 1980s and 1990s. He was also an artist who documented his time at TC with sketches that included renderings of past presidents Lawrence Cremin and Arthur Levine.


Rodney Tillman (M.A. ’49, Ed.D. ’55) passed away in July 2013 at the age of 91. Tillman served as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Education, the World Bank, the Joint Council for Economic Education, and the Ministries of Education for Greece, Korea and Iran. He also served as Dean of Education at George Washington University. Tillman was a member of TC’s Grace Dodge Society.

Published Friday, May. 30, 2014