D O R N S I F E F A M I LY
Fame in 2004 and to Aragon High School Athletics Hall of Fame in 2009.
R EMEMBER ING
LUKE WILLIAMS JR. (BA, political science, ’83) of Springfield, MA (7/27/2021) at age 59; devoted his life to working at numerous nonprofit organizations. RAYMOND WINTROUB (BA, psychology, ’49; MD, ’55) of Rolling Hills, CA (11/15/2021) at age 96; served in the U.S. Navy as a radar specialist during WWII in some of the most dangerous spots in the Pacific theatre, including Iwo Jima, surviving kamikaze attacks and harrowing battles with enemy vessels; highly respected pediatrician in Palos Verdes for four decades. DORIS YIP (BA, sociology, ’46) of Los Angeles, CA (2/27/2022) at age 97; enjoyed international travel, socializing and Korean soap operas. CARLEEN ZAWACKI (BA, sociology, ’81) of Los Angeles, CA (8/23/2021) at age 80; skilled psychiatric social worker and therapist, and dedicated mental health advocate. AHRONS PHOTO BY SUSAN O’HAVER YOUNG; BOEHM PHOTO COURTESY OF JENNY MORRIS SE Y
SUBMIT ALUMNI NEWS FOR CONSIDERATION ONLINE AT dornsife.usc.edu/alumni-news. Information may be edited for space. Listings for the “Alumni News” and “In Memoriam” sections are compiled based on submissions from alumni and USC Dornsife departments as well as published notices from media outlets.
dornsife.usc.edu/alumni-news
“But Can She Type?”
Prominent feminist scholar Constance Ahrons pioneered the concept of “a good divorce” that enabled former couples to “agree to disagree.” Emeritus Professor of Sociology Constance Ahrons died Nov. 29, 2021, after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma. She was 84. She is best known for her book The Good Divorce: Keeping Your Family Together When Your Marriage Comes Apart (HarperCollins, 1994), based on a longitudinal study of families spanning more than 20 years. Both Ahrons’ own marriages ended in divorce — the first, she often noted, had been contentious — and she was determined to help others find a better way. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian and Polish immigrants who owned and operated a New Jersey appliance store, Ahrons dropped out of college upon her first marriage in 1956. Finding herself caught up in a seemingly never-ending cycle of housework, laundry and child care, the former undergraduate was — like many women of that era — prescribed tranquilizers. But after reading Betty Friedan’s 1963 seminal feminist manifesto The Feminine Mystique, Ahrons threw away the pills and resumed her studies. After teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she earned her PhD in 1973, Ahrons joined USC Dornsife’s Department of Sociology in 1984, becoming director of USC’s Marriage and Family Therapy Training Program in 1996. “The feminist poster of Golda Meir with the legend ‘But can she type?’ was the first thing I remember seeing every time she opened the door to meet with us during her office hours at USC,” said alumna Gloria González-López, now a professor of sociology at The University of Texas at Austin. “She introduced me to the world of feminist psychotherapy.” Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Professor Emerita of Sociology at USC Dornsife, said, “Connie Ahrons’ legacy lives on through the feminist mentorship she provided and her impactful scholarship on family and divorce.” —S.B.
CHRISTOPHER BOEHM, professor of biological sciences, died in his sleep at age 90 on Nov. 23, 2021. In the 1980s, Boehm conducted research with renowned primate expert Jane Goodall in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park. This work produced Boehm’s groundbreaking book Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior (Harvard University Press, 2001), which traces humanity’s dual nature, both egalitarian and despotic, from primates to the present era. Boehm was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Antioch University in Ohio, then completed a PhD at Harvard University. His dissertation made him an expert on Montenegrin blood feuds. He taught for nearly a decade at Northern Kentucky University before beginning his research work with Goodall in 1983. In 1991, Goodall helped establish the Jane Goodall Research Center at USC Dornsife. Researchers at the center built a database of the social and moral behavior of hunter-gatherers. Goodall brought Boehm on as director of the center. He remained with USC Dornsife up until his death. He was at work on several book projects the night before he died. “We should all hope to be as engaged in ideas and scholarship for so many years as Chris was,” said Craig Stanford, professor of anthropology and biological sciences. —M.C.
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