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William Van Til,
Ph.D., age 95, of Terre Haute died on May 24, 2006 at his home.
He served 1967-1977 in the School of Education of Indiana State
University as the Coffman
Distinguished Professor.
He was born in Corona, New York
January 8, 1911 to
William Joseph and Florence MacLean Van Til.
Survivors
include his wife Beatrice B. Van Til; daughter Barbara Nichols and
her husband Robert, Georgetown, SC, son Jon Van Til and his wife
Trudy Heller, Swarthmore, PA, and son Roy Van Til and his wife
Linda, Vienna, ME; six
grandchildren, Linda Meese and her husband Scott, Granger, IN,
Justin Van Til and his wife Caitlin, Portland, ME, Laura Walsh and
her husband Gary, Kalamazoo, MI, Desiree Van Til, Los Angeles, CA,
Ross Van Til, Alexandria, VA, Claire Van Til, Philadelphia, PA; one
great-grandson Daniel Meese, Granger, IN and one
great-granddaughter, Kaitlyn Walsh, Kalamazoo, MI.
His degrees were from Columbia College
1933, Teachers College of Columbia University 1935, and the Ph.D Ohio State University
1946. On his college
graduation he taught juvenile delinquents in a
New York State
reform school from 1933-1934; then for a decade taught at the junior
and senior levels in the progressive experimental school, the Ohio
State University School, 1934-1943.
He became a progressive educator who has steadily maintained
that good education should be based on three foundations: the
personal-social needs of the learner, the social realities of the
time, and the understanding and practice of the democratic way of
life.
During summers throughout his
career he also taught classes or conducted workshops at Columbia University, New York
University, Ohio University, Northwestern University,
Langston University, Indiana University, University of Wyoming, Colorado
State College at Greeley, University of New Mexico,
University of Southern California, and the Springfield,
Missouri
and Kansas City
public schools.
He wrote and edited for the Consumer
Education Study and the Bureau for Intercultural Education
1943-1947. At 36 he
became a full professor University of Illinois 1947-1951, then a professor and
division head George
Peabody
College
1951-1957, professor and administrator New York University
1957-1967, before joining the
Indiana
State
University
at President Alan C. Rankin’s invitation to serve under the newly
created title Distinguished Professor of Education.
Dr. Van Til served as national president
of The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
1961-1962, John Dewey Society 1964-1966, and National Society of
College Teachers of Education 1967-1968.
Kappa Delta Pi honorary named him to its Laureate Chapter
1980 and Ohio
State
University
elected him to the Education Hall of Fame 1989.
Awards included Outstanding
Lifetime Achievement Award, John Dewey Society 1991, and Award of
Recognition, Spring Conference 1999.
In 1989 Indiana State
University initiated the
annual Van Til Lecture and Writing Awards.
He wrote or co-authored 25 books and
edited/contributed to 15 professional yearbooks.
The Danube
Flows Through Fascism; 900 miles in a foldboat was his first
book in 1938 and My Way of Looking at It: An Autobiography
the expanded second edition was his most recent book in 1996.
His articles numbered more than 200.
He was a columnist for the journals of ASCD, Indiana State
University and Phi Delta
Kappa. Among his
textbooks were Education: A Beginning 1971, 1974;
Curriculum: Quest for Relevance 1971, 1974; Secondary
Education: School and Community 1978; Writing for
Professional Publication 1978, 1986.
Who’s Who in America has
carried his biography since late 1940’s.
He is profiled in Teachers and Mentors: Profiles of
Distinguished Twentieth Century Professors of Education, 1996.
In 2002 he was the subject of a biographical doctoral
dissertation at the
University
of South Carolina,
William Van Til: Public Intellectual.
As an Illinois Interracial Commission
member by appointment of then governor Adlai E. Stevenson, he
mediated a school sit-in conflict at
Alton, Illinois in 1950. He chaired the first public
meetings ever held in
Nashville,
Tennessee on school desegregation
1955-1957; during one meeting racists punctured the tires of those
attending. He also
testified against segregation at a state legislative hearing, and
co-organized The Nashville Community Relations Conference 1956.
When he returned to the
New York area, the New York Times published
his letter advocating college scholarships for
Little Rock students who defied segregation.
Dr. Van Til’s hobby was travel.
Summers of 1936 through 1939 he and his wife Bee traveled by
foldboat on the Danube, Elbe, Saar and Mosel Rivers in Europe, and
in North America on the Connecticut, Hudson, St. Lawrence Rivers and
Rideau Canal. In 1954
he lived for five months in Europe
with his wife and their three children.
In 1974 he and his wife traveled around the world.
In retirement they lived winters in Puerto Rico 1978-1999
where he had earlier taught summer sessions for NYU.
Other international experiences included surveys of education
in Iran, Puerto
Rico and Virgin Islands
and talks sponsored by US Information Agency in Australia and
Asia, 1974.
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