Obituaries

Robert N. Stern, professor and director of graduate studies in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, died April 21 in Ithaca. He was 52.

Stern was a faculty member in the Department of Organizational Behavior at Cornell for 27 years and a member of the Department of Sociology for more than 10 years. He also served as chair of the organizational behavior department.

Stern received his Ph.D. in sociology at Vanderbilt University, where he concentrated in the areas of industrial and organizational sociology. His research focused on problems of organizational conflict and control, as reflected in published studies of worker participation and ownership, various forms of industrial conflict, and different types of regulatory organizations.

He was active in the American Sociological Association and in the Academy of Management, serving on a variety of professional committees and on the editorial boards of Administrative Science Quarterly, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Academy of Management Review and Work and Occupations.

He was a member of the Fingerlakes Independence Center and an avid baseball card enthusiast. He is survived by his wife, Corinne Stern; daughter, Danielle Stern; son, Ethan Stern; and brother, Allen Stern.

Memorial donations in his name may be made to either the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Hospicare of Ithaca, the Fingerlakes Independence Center or Temple Beth El.

Florence W. Sanford, a former long-term employee at the university, died May 14 in Ithaca. She was 90.

A graduate of Auburn High School and Auburn Business School, she came to Ithaca in 1930 and worked at Cornell for 40 years, first in the Treasurer's Office and later in the office of the Vice President for Business. She was the wife of the late Clayton (Red) Sanford who died in November 1975. Donations may be sent to the American Cancer Society, 57 Front Street, Binghamton, N.Y. 13905-4797.

Elizabeth (Mary) Wilkinson, Cornell Professor-at-Large from 1967 to 1973, died Jan. 2 in London. She was 92.

The Times of London called her one of the finest scholars of German culture England has produced: "Her work shows a rare combination of historical awareness with a sensibility alive to the subtleties that enable works of art to seem to transcend history."

Her first loves were biology and history, but she was lured into the study of German by J.G. Robertson, another great British German scholar, who also persuaded her to leave high school teaching in favor of graduate work and a subsequent career at the University of London. But she never lost touch with "the schools" and often remarked on the "sad" disconnect between American high schools and colleges.

Her teaching was inspired and inspiring, as was the steady flow of her published research culminating in her edition, with L.A. Willoughby, of Friedrich Schiller's Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man.

She was a member of the British Academy, the German Akademie fuer Sprache und Dichtung, the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Goettingen and a recipient of numerous honors and awards.