LAFF Society

NEWSLETTER

In Memoriam, Winter 2018

 

Craufurd Goodwin, an historian of economic thought who was the officer in charge of the European and International Affairs (EIA) office at Ford in the 1970s and then a consultant in several offices for another two decades, died early last year, it was recently learned. He was 82.
 
Mr. Goodwin headed EIA from 1971 to 1977 after being a consultant from 1968. After he left, he worked again as a consultant in four Foundation offices until the summer of 1994.
 
His career as an academic spanned more than 50 years, nearly all of them at Duke University, from which he received his doctorate in 1958 with a thesis on Canadian economic policy and where he began teaching in 1962 as an assistant professor. 
 
Over the years he served the university as vice provost, university secretary and dean of The Graduate School, where he helped begin the university’s Master of Liberal Studies program, now known as the Graduate Liberal Studies program, which enabled thousands of adults to earn advanced degrees in interdisciplinary studies.
 
He quickly became one of the more respected faculty members at Duke. Early in his career there, in 1969, he was among the faculty who were key intermediaries in helping resolve conflicts that arose during nationwide student protests, during which Duke students occupied an administration building.
 
“Craufurd was one of a small group of people who started the field of the history of economic thought,” said Paul Dudenhefer, a Duke faculty member, after Mr. Goodwin died in April 2017. “It used to be done as part of economics in general….He institutionalized the subfield of the history of economics.”
 
He wrote more than 100 books and articles, concentrating on the history of the use of economics in public life. He studied the role of economics in the arts, literature, journalism and public policy, and, drawing as well on his work with Ford, examined how such institutions as foundations and think tanks helped shape the nature of economics education and analysis around the world. 
 
He was an influential figure in his field, having been a past president and distinguished fellow of the History of Economics Society, working to build a professional community of historians of economics. He was also a founding member of the journal History of Political Economy, of the History of Economics Society and of the Center for the History of Political Economy. 
 
Mr. Goodwin also gained renown for the nineteenth century property he and his wife purchased, known as Montrose, which once was owned by a North Carolina governor and came to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places as much for the 20-acre garden Mr. Goodwin’s wife, Nancy, developed as for the house. 
 
Tourists from around the country visited Montrose, drawn also by the extensive art collection that focused on the Bloomsbury Group, an informal gathering of such British artists, writers and intellectuals as Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster and John Maynard Keynes, and that Mr. Goodwin studied and often wrote about.
 
Mr. Goodwin, said Paul Dudenhefer, “was always eager to talk about the fascinating things he was reading and writing about. Working with him was extremely educational and entertaining. He made me laugh every day.”
 
John Sommer, assistant representative in the Foundation’s New Delhi office from 1970 to 1975, died November 11 at the age of 76. He had been suffering from multiple myeloma for seven years.
 
Mr. Sommer joined the Foundation in 1969 and worked in the Asia and Pacific program until being posted the next year to New Delhi as assistant to the representative. He became assistant representative and program officer in 1972.
 
A family statement at his death noted that, by working with Harold “Doc” Howe, Fred Weaver, Peter Geithner and Kamla Chowdhry, “to name just a few, John’s focus on the Foundation’s educational and cultural programs deepened into a lifelong commitment to international development, cultural exchange and, most specifically, to advancing programs in support of India’s most vulnerable communities”. 
 
After leaving Ford, he worked for six years in Washington, D.C., in senior positions with the Overseas Development Council, the Peace Corps and USAID, and as a consultant for the Refugee Policy Group and Interaction.
 
In 1981, he moved to Vermont to become dean of Academic Studies Abroad at the School for International Training, in Brattleboro, where he remained until 2000. During his term, more than 14,000 students in 40 countries participated in the program. He then was vice president of the Eisenhower Fellowships, in Philadelphia, until 2007, when he retired.
 
In 2001, he wrote the book Empowering the Oppressed: Grassroots Advocacy Movements in India, in which he stressed the importance of replacing traditional development projects with initiatives that advance fundamental changes in power relationships. His beliefs grew from his international experiences and from several terms as chair of the Advisory Board of the Unitarian-Universalist Holdeen-India program between 1993 and 2017.
 
Mr. Sommer earned a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and a master’s from the Johns Hopkins School for International Studies. He then worked as a volunteer building schools in South Vietnam and, from that experience, co-wrote with Don Luce the book Viet Nam: The Unheard Voices, expressing concern with United States actions in the country in the late 1960s.
 
He is survived by two children, Julia and Paul; five grandchildren; his partner, Ann Wright-Parsons, and former wife, Wendy Sommer.
 
Samuel E. Bunker, who worked at Ford for 15 years in many international assignments and then had considerable success in promoting cooperative projects around the world, died last June 10 at the age of 88.
 
Mr. Bunker began at Ford as an administrative assistant in India in 1963. Until he retired in 1978, he worked as an assistant representative in the New Delhi office, a program officer in the Asia and Pacific program in New York, and an associate representative, acting representative and deputy representative in the Beirut and Cairo offices before returning to New York in 1977 as deputy head of the Middle East and Africa program. 
 
He left Ford in 1978 to go to work for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), where he remained as head of its International Programs Division until he retired in 1990.
 
During his tenure at NRECA, he brought to fruition a decade-long, $40 million project to provide electricity to more than three million people in Bangladesh, developed a $25 million initiative for new and innovative approaches to rural electrification, and created the cooperative’s International Foundation to help the poor and needy in the world gain electric service.
 
He served on many boards, including as chairman of the board of CARE, chairman of the Cooperative Housing Foundation, secretary of CARE international, president of the Philippine-American Foundation, and as a director of Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance.
 
Mr. Bunker, son of the diplomat Ellsworth Bunker, had degrees from Yale and Harvard universities. 
 
Hanna Papanek, wife of Gustav Papanek, who worked at the Ford Foundation in Islamabad and Jakarta from 1954 to 1974, died January 24 at her home in Lexington, Mass., at the age of 90.
 
Mrs. Papanek, a pioneer in women’s studies, especially on the limitations women faced in various cultures and on the role of women in their husbands’ careers, was one of the first women to receive a doctorate in social relations from Harvard University. She’s been described as “a feminist before the movement became widespread”. 
 
She taught at Harvard, Boston University, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Indonesia.
 
Gustav Papanek is president of the Boston Institute for Developing Economies, and a professor emeritus at Boston University. In his five decades of work on the economics of development, he has directed 16 major policy advisory and research teams, primarily on aspects of development strategy, and written or edited 8 books, 50 articles and 52 other publications.
 
A leading development economist, he has been head of the Harvard University Development Advisory Service, the Boston University economics department, and several AID, World Bank, and Harvard advisory and research teams.
 
John Koprowski, a former comptroller of the Ford Foundation who developed a productive career in theater and cabaret after leaving Ford, died December 15 at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He underwent heart surgery in June and never fully recovered.
 
He began his career as an accountant, having earned a bachelor’s degree from St. Peter’s College and a master’s in economics from New York University. He worked for 12 years for the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation in Brooklyn as its vice president for accounting and information systems before joining Ford in 1982.
 
He was comptroller until 1984, when he became treasurer and director of financial services. He resigned from the Foundation in 1993, though he worked for Ford as a consultant for the next four years through a firm he established, John J. Koprowski & Associates. His firm worked exclusively in the non-profit sector, providing services for civil and human rights organizations, arts organizations, policy and advocacy groups, membership organizations and international capacity building groups.
 
His love for and work in the theater went back many years, including while he was at Ford, and he pursued that passion full time after leaving the Foundation. 
 
He produced and performed in four cabaret shows, appearing at many clubs in the New York City area. As an actor, he belonged to the award-winning Blue Coyote Theatre Company and co-produced and appeared in shows with Without Papers Productions, a company he co-founded. He appeared in several independent films, including The Third Testament, which has been shown at several festivals.
 
He was treasurer of the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC), treasurer of the board of the Singers Forum and a member of the board of the Astoria Performing Arts Center.
 
He had “a rich and productive career as a mainstay of key organizations in the community development, philanthropic and arts and entertainment sectors,” said Shep Forman, president of The LAFF Society and a colleague of his at the Foundation. “Those of us who had the pleasure of working with John recall a warm, exuberant and joyful colleague, who delightfully moonlighted as an actor and cabaret performer.”
 
Philomena Forde Taylor, who worked in the Program Related Investment (PRI) office and its successor unit during the 1990s, died January 22 at the age of 81.
 
Ms. Taylor, a native of County Limerick in Ireland, began work for Ford as a secretary in PRI in 1991and was promoted to senior secretary in 1993 and then supervising secretary in 1995.
 
She remained with the unit when its name was changed to Asset Building and Community Development/Economic Development, and became its administrative coordinator in 1999. She retired later that year.

 

 

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