LAFF Society

NEWSLETTER

In Memoriam, Spring 2016

 

Malcolm Gillis, former president of Rice University and at one time a consultant to the Ford Foundation in Indonesia, died last October at the age of 74.
 
Mr. Gillis worked with Ford during the 1970s as a representative of the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), which provided hands-on training for aid-giving organizations in developing countries. The Foundation provided housing and transportation for HIID staff, who, said Peter Weldon, a member of the Foundation’s staff in Jakarta at the time, “were regarded as part of the Foundation family”. 
 
A noted economist, Mr. Gillis was president of Rice from 1993 to 2004. Upon his retirement he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Association of Rice Alumni in large measure for having initiated the university’s first strategic plan in nearly 50 years, a capital drive that enabled Rice to renovate existing buildings and build new ones. 
 
He also was cited for investing in information and computational technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology and environmental and energy technology while, as noted in a statement from the university, he “consistently promoted the humanities and social sciences as no less important than the natural sciences and engineering to contemporary life and endeavor”. 
 
After receiving his doctorate from the University of Illinois he taught economics at Duke University and then at Harvard before returning to Duke to be dean of the graduate school, then vice provost for academic affairs and finally dean of arts and sciences before leaving for Rice.
 
The Rev. Canon Stephen W. Price, who was an assistant to Ford’s vice president for financial affairs and then a private consultant to the Foundation advising non-profit community-based organizations working in inner-city poverty areas, died January 24 of complications from a lung transplant. He was 73.
 
After his graduation with honors from Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Mr. Price earned a master’s degree from the Yale Divinity School and was ordained at the First Congregational Church of Ridgefield, Conn., his hometown. His first assignment was as a minister for the  St. Paul, Minn., Urban Parish and was named pastor of the United Methodist Church.
 
He joined the priesthood of the Episcopal Church in 1980 and at the time of his death was priest-in-charge of Calvary Episcopal Church in Conshohocken, Pa.
 
He was a member of the Cathedral Chapter and president and chair of the finance committee of the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral. He was named honorary canon shortly before his death.
 
His life-long commitment to civil rights and  social justice began when he joined the 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Ala. He also demonstrated outside the Democratic National Convention in 1968 and campaigned for disinvestment from South Africa in 1972.
 
“He was a champion for the people and a hero to us,” said his stepdaughter, Kristine Dickinson-Pabody.
 
His work at Ford involved co-ordinating the Foundation’s investment policy with program goals, and fostering community and real estate development. He continued as a consultant when he left to join the firm of K.S. Sweet Associates in King of Prussia, Pa.
 
For many years he worked to provide low-cost housing for senior citizens of modest means, and was a leader and member of several public-private partnerships.
Survivors, in addition to his stepdaughter, include his wife, Kathleen Deets Price, two sons, two daughters, a stepson and four grandchildren. He also is survived by his first wife, Dawn Flewellen, from whom he was divorced. 
 
Donald T. McDonald, who worked at the Foundation for nearly 20 years in several positions overseeing taxes and insurance, has passed away. He was 81.
 
Mr. McDonald was hired in 1966 as a senior account administrator in the office of the comptroller and two years later became the overseas accounting advisor in Lebanon for the Middle East and Africa office.
 
Then, after a short stint in 1971 as an accounting advisor in New York, he became the assistant director in the office of Taxes, Comptroller and Insurance. Through a series of title changes and promotions in that office he stayed until he retired as Risk Manager in 1985.
 
Mr. McDonald was a graduate of St. Peter’s College, now St. Peter’s University, in Jersey City, N.J., and was a member of the U.S. Army’s 775th Field Artillery Battalion.
 
Survivors include his wife, Janice, two sons and five grandchildren.

 

 

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