Harry G. Shaffer, former author and economics professor at the University of Kansas, died Nov. 3. Shaffer taught at the University of Kansas for 53 years. He began teaching in 1956.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The University lost a longtime icon this week, according to the students and faculty who knew Harry Shaffer best.
Video
Harry Shaffer on retiring
Former economics professor Harry Shaffer made the decision to retire after 60 years of teaching, 53 of which at the University. The video was taken about a year ago.
Video
Harry Shaffer reading student evaluations
The former professor shares some of his favorite course evaluations from past years.
Harry Shaffer, professor emeritus of economics who retired last year after teaching for 52 years, died Tuesday at age 90.
“He was a legend,” said Chris Billinger, WaKeeney senior and former student of Shaffer. “He’s the only professor I can think of who everyone knows.”
Shaffer was born in Vienna, Austria in 1919 and came to the University in 1956 after resigning from his position at the University of Alabama in protest of segregation.
Shaffer was opinionated and passionate, and not just about economics — he acted as an advocate of human rights and freedom of speech throughout his life. He spoke out against Nazi Germany in the 1940s, American segregation in the 1950s, the Vietnam War in the 1970s and recently demonstrated against the Iraq war.
In 1990 Shaffer confronted more injustice when a law, later ruled unconstitutional, forced full-time professors to retire at age 70, said Joe Sicilian, chairman of the department of economics. Sicilian said Shaffer continued to teach, however, for significantly less pay until age 89 because he enjoyed working with students.
“That was what he loved the most, his interaction with students,” Sicilian said. “He would tell me he would love to run into students from the past or the present in town or on campus.”
Sarah Frazelle, KU research analyst and lecturer, spent five semesters as Shaffer’s teaching assistant before assuming his role as the current economics 104 instructor. Frazelle said she always tried to follow the example Shaffer set with the course, but that there were aspects to his lectures that she couldn’t recreate. For example, she said, he would always present a long, detailed island analogy on the advent of money.
“That is something that will never be able to be told the way he told it,” Frazelle said. “That is something students for generations will always remember: that money story.”
Shaffer, in his 50-plus years at the University, had the opportunity to tell that story and others to multiple generations of Jayhawks. In a 2007 interview with The Kansan, Shaffer reported that multiple students had commented on having parents who took his course before they did.
“Only once did I have somebody say ‘Professor Shaffer, my grandfather took your course,’” Shaffer said.
Manda Barker, a 2005 graduate and former student of Shaffer, said she mostly remembered his endearing charm. It always characterized the stories he would unravel to his hundreds of economic students, she said.
She said she also remembered it fondly from when she bumped into him in person in the grocery store six years after she took his course.
Shaffer was with his wife Betty at the time, Barker said, and seized the moment to compliment her good her looks. When Barker agreed that Betty was indeed beautiful, Shaffer gleamed and said, “Well, of course, she was a dancer,” Barker said.
Russ Ptacek, longtime friend of Shaffer, said it was moments such as these that characterized their entire marriage. He said he noticed the steadfast devotion they had for one another from the first time he met Shaffer at the Unity Church of Lawrence.
“Harry is jewish and he went to a Christian-based church in Lawrence to be with his wife Betty who is a Christian,” Ptacek said. “They were probably the most incredible love story that anybody who knew them had ever seen.”
Shaffer, who exhaled his last breath in the presence of his wife, was a man who graced everyone around him with his positive spirit and will be missed by many, Ptacek said. Ptacek said he would most miss his friend in the poker group that Shaffer would enliven for hours every Sunday afternoon.
“He was very lively. He had a lot of energy,” Ptacek said, before adding that the slow, deliberate game was, “absolutely never dull with Harry Shaffer.”
— Edited by Anna Kathagnarath
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Comments
Shaffer remembered for his charisma
Mr. Shaffer was an example of how to be an honorable man and a truly devoted professor. You don't find very many people as compassionate and compelling as him. He sure was something else.
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