Obituaries | Faculty

Jason Wolfe, 73, professor of biology emeritus, died Dec. 23, 2014. He joined the Wesleyan faculty in 1969 after receiving his BA from Rutgers and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and completing two post-doctoral fellowships at Kings College, University of London, and Johns Hopkins. He taught cell biology, human biology, biology of aging and the elderly, and structural biology at Wesleyan for 39 years.

In his research, Wolfe asked big questions about how reproduction and aging are regulated. With funding from NIH and NSF, he produced an enviable body of work published in the major cell biology journals—always mentoring undergraduates and graduate students with compassion and insight. He led the effort that resulted in Wesleyan’s first Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant for Undergraduate Life Science Education, establishing a program that has provided decades of support for hundreds of undergraduates. In retirement, he twice offered his popular general education course in human biology and published his last Biology Open research paper in 2014 with four former Wesleyan undergraduate co-authors.

He is survived by his wife, Vera Schwarcz, the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, professor of history, as well as three children and five grandchildren.

George R. Creeger, 89, professor of English, emeritus, died Nov. 1, 2014. He joined the Wesleyan faculty in 1951 after receiving his B.A. at DePauw University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Yale. He taught American literature in the English Department for nearly 50 years. An expert on romantic poetry—particularly Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and Byron—and on the works of Herman Melville, he was also a generalist who brought some of his other passions into the classroom through courses on Early Connecticut Houses and Opera as Myth and Literature. He served as Dean of the College from 1971–1973 as well as chair of the faculty from 1991–1992. He was a brilliant teacher whose deep resonant voice was instantly recognizable, and he was much beloved by a devoted following of students. He was the first recipient of the Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching when it was inaugurated in 1993.

He is survived by a son, Christopher (Kit); his daughter, Katie; and two grandsons. He is predeceased by his wife, Elva, and by a son, Carl.

MELVIN STRAUSS, Adjunct Professor of Music, Emeritus, died Sept. 5, 2012, at age 83. He received his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and his master’s from New York University. He also attended the Juilliard School of Music. He worked with Leonard Bernstein at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he was involved with the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Contemporary Music Weeks, and came to prominence in contemporary music circles. He was appointed conductor of the Fromm Players at Tanglewood as recipient of the prestigious Fromm Fellowship in Contemporary Music, and also received the Koussevitsky Conducting Prize by the Boston Symphony. After serving as President of Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts from 1975 to 1985, he came to Wesleyan, where he directed and conducted both the University Orchestra and Concert Choir, and served as director of the Private Music Lessons program, which he helped to rejuvenate. He also served as Associate Conductor at the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and taught at SUNY-Buffalo, the University of Pennsylvania, and Rutgers. He co-founded and conducted the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá and in 1998 led the Wesleyan Symphony Orchestra during the “John Cage at Wesleyan” festival, one performance of which was publicly released as a CD. Survivors include his daughter, Jamie Strauss Cohon, and two grandchildren. and Rutgers. He co-founded and conducted the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá and in 1998 led the Wesleyan Symphony Orchestra during the “John Cage at Wesleyan” festival, one performance of which was publicly released as a CD. Survivors include his daughter, Jamie Strauss Cohon, and two grandchildren.

SATURNINO SALAS, assistant professor of mathematics from 1960 to 1965 (and father of Wesleyan’s Director of Strategic Initiatives Charles G. Salas MA ’85) died June 2, 2012. He was 81. After attending Princeton University, he served in the U.S. Air Force for four years and received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University in 1959. In addition to teaching at Wesleyan he taught at Yale University and at the University of Connecticut before retiring from academia to devote himself to the writing of mathematics textbooks. Predeceased by his wife, Judith Eckart Salas, he is survived by his four children, 11 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, two brothers, and a sister.

STEVEN B. BUTTNER ’61, 72, a management consultant and former dean at Wesleyan, died Aug. 1, 2012. He was a member of EQV. He received a master’s in Russian Studies from the University of Wisconsin and was a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University in Eastern European and Russian Medieval History. After teaching at Queens College, he joined the administration at Wesleyan, where he was a lecturer in history and Dean of the Class of 1974. He subsequently built his career as a management consultant, specializing in leadership assessment and coaching. Survivors include his wife, Jeri Butler Buttner; his two children and their mother, Doreen Buttner; his brother; and a large extended family.

MARK BARLOW, dean at Wesleyan from 1957 to 1965 and former Trustee of the University, died June 23, 2012, at age 87. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he received his degree from Wesleyan. A member of Eclectic, he received a master’s degree from Colgate University and a doctorate of education from Cornell University. In 1957, he became Dean of Students at Wesleyan and later Dean of the University. Because of his age, the students dubbed him “the boy dean,” but he quickly developed a reputation for handling student academic and disciplinary issues with a sense of humor and an appreciation for individual personalities. He supported selected students who participated as Freedom Riders in the South during the civil rights era. In 1965 he returned to Cornell as vice president for student affairs and subsequently became Vice Provost. He received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from Wesleyan in 1981 and a Wesleyan University Service Award in 2011; he had served as Trustee from 1968 to 1971. He is survived by his wife, Jane Atwood Barlow, three children, and four grandchildren.