Former Provost Lieberman
dies
Gerald J. Lieberman,
former Stanford provost and a pioneer in the fields of
statistics and operations research, died at his campus
home on Tuesday, May 18, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(Lou Gehrig's disease). He was 73.
A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. Monday, May 24,
in Kresge Auditorium.
Lieberman served as
provost or acting provost during the tenures of three
Stanford presidents -- Richard Lyman, Donald Kennedy and
Gerhard Casper -- including the transition from Kennedy
to Casper.
"Jerry was a good and
wise man who was an exemplary citizen of the university
-- understanding every aspect of it in a way few people
do," Casper said. "To me, he was not only an
indispensable guide and adviser in my first year but
became almost immediately a friend whom I trusted
completely."
Lieberman also held a
number of other administrative positions, including vice
provost and dean of graduate studies and research and
associate dean of humanities and sciences. He was a key
architect of Stanford's operations research program, and
was active in faculty governance. He also chaired the
committee that planned Stanford's multi-year centennial
celebration.
Friend and colleague
Albert Hastorf noted that Lieberman was
"Everyman" in the academic community, as a
teacher, as a researcher, and as an administrator.
"He was an extraordinary person. His spirit will be
with us, but he will be missed," said Hastorf,
professor emeritus of psychology.
"He was the
archetypal faculty statesperson," said Lyman.
"He was a person whom the faculty kept turning to in
order to help solve the most difficult problems, because
they knew that he was the soul of integrity and that he
would represent their best interests, and their best side
as well."
"Jerry Lieberman was
not only a superb scholar, provost and dean; he was a
consistent and thoughtful guardian of Stanford's
values," added Kennedy. "As our research
policies experienced new challenges during the 1980s --
both from growing efforts at federal control and from
increasing incentives toward commercialization -- he was
a principled voice for independence and restraint.
Stanford was the fortunate beneficiary of his good sense
and his good humor, and of his great influence in shaping
what we are."
An illustration of
Lieberman's indefatigable spirit was his relationship
with the Center for the Study of Language and Information
(CSLI). In the last few years, as his illness began
interfering with his ability to communicate, he
volunteered his services as a subject for CSLI's Project
Archimedes, a research effort designed to ensure that
people with disabilities are not left behind by the
computer revolution.
Lieberman tested a variety
of equipment, including a voice synthesizer that CSLI
researchers outfitted with special word-prediction
software. As a user enters a phrase, the software
anticipates the user's next word, allowing him or her to
select it with minimal effort. Lieberman's synthesizer
was pre-programmed so that he could rattle off his
trademark phrase -- "Take the rest of the day
off!" -- with a single keystroke, something that he
delighted in saying at the end of especially long or
difficult days.
"CSLI's advanced
technology helped Jerry to remain actively engaged in
campus affairs for several years," said the center's
director, John Perry. "But he was particularly proud
of the fact that he was contributing to research that can
benefit many other people."
Lieberman was born Dec.
31, 1925, in Brooklyn, N. Y. His parents, Joseph and Ida,
were recent immigrants from Lithuania and his father
worked for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Jerry
Lieberman was an honor student in high school and gained
admittance to the highly competitive Cooper Union, where
he earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering
in 1948. After getting a master's degree in statistics
from Columbia University in 1949, he came to Stanford as
a doctoral student in statistics, and he never left.
In 1953, the year he
earned his doctorate, he joined the Stanford faculty in
statistics and industrial engineering. At the time of his
death, he was professor emeritus of operations research
and statistics.
Lieberman's research
focused on reliability theory and statistical quality
control. He developed innovative methods for answering
some of the key questions in the inspection of products:
When and how should items be sampled? When should
sampling be sequential? When should every 10th item by
sampled? Which characteristics need to be sampled more
often, and which can be checked less frequently?
With Albert Bowker, former
chancellor of the University of California-Berkeley,
Lieberman wrote the Handbook of Industrial Statistics
that set the stage for the widespread use of control
charts in industry and for alternative methods of
sampling inspection.
In the early 1960s,
Lieberman was part of a task force appointed by
then-Provost Fred Terman to consolidate faculty interest
in operations research, a discipline that uses
mathematical modeling to come up with optimal solutions
for practical problems, based on the application of
mathematical models and techniques, computer algorithms
and systems analysis. Lieberman chaired the
interdepartmental program on operations research that
began in 1962; it became a full-fledged department in the
School of Engineering three years later. He continued as
chair until 1975, when he was named associate dean of
humanities and sciences.
Lieberman co-authored an
award-winning textbook, Introduction to Operations
Research, with Frederick S. Hillier, professor
emeritus of engineering-economic systems and operations
research. It has become one of the most widely used
textbooks in the field. In addition to the two books, he
wrote more than 50 technical papers on these subjects.
"Jerry Lieberman was
a very special role model for so many of his colleagues
and students," said Hillier, who had Lieberman as
his freshman adviser, undergraduate adviser, graduate
adviser, dissertation adviser, mentor, friend and
co-author. "Beyond being a fine scholar, he had
tremendous wisdom, integrity and courage. He gave of
himself so generously to others. He was such a special
individual, a real prince of a man."
Lieberman was active in a
number of professional societies, including the National
Academy of Engineering, to which he was elected in 1987;
the Institute of Management Science; the Operations
Research Society of America; and the International
Statistical Institute. He was a fellow of the American
Statistical Association; the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics; the American Society for Quality Control and
the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
His contributions were recognized in 1997 when he
received the George E. Kimball Medal from the Institute
for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.
"For tens of thousands of students, faculty and
practitioners around the world, Jerry Lieberman is
Operations Research," the citation read.
In addition to his
research, Lieberman had a full career as a campus
administrator. In 1977, he was tapped to serve as vice
provost and dean of research. In that role, he spoke out
nationally on science policy, including such issues as
academic freedom, secrecy in research, government efforts
to restrict research by foreign students, indirect cost
reimbursement and university-industry relations.
At the request of
then-President Richard W. Lyman, Lieberman served as
acting provost from January to August 1979, when Donald
Kennedy returned from a stint in Washington, D.C., to
take over the university's number two position.
In 1980, then-President
Kennedy expanded Lieberman's duties as vice provost to
include responsibility for graduate student issues.
"One thing I learned
as an administrator," Lieberman said in an
interview, "is that you never solve problems. You
postpone them." What is decided one day can easily
be undone the next day, he explained.
Lieberman decided to
return to teaching in 1985.
At commencement that year
he was presented the Kenneth M. Cuthbertson Award for
exceptional service to Stanford. He was cited for having
"the wisdom and academic foresight . . . to
recognize the potential of the new interdisciplinary
field of operations research, and for the skills of
persuasion he used to turn that orphan into the ranking
department of its kind in the world."
He also was recognized for
his "tireless efforts on behalf of Stanford's
graduate students" and for "dedication to the
defense of this faculty's first principles of research --
freedom, openness, accessibility -- in the councils of
government as well as of his university."
The party thrown in his
honor when he left the vice provost position played to
his love of sports and became a model used for later
social events. Telling Lieberman she was taking him to a
small gathering at the Lou Henry Hoover House, Marlene
Wine, assistant to the president, blindfolded the
retiring administrator and drove him and his family to
the 50-yard-line of Stanford Stadium's football field.
Tables had been set up for
a party, with several members of the football team
recruited as waiters. Then-Athletics Director Andy Geiger
presented Lieberman with a "good-anywhere pass"
to the stadium, which prompted Lieberman to comment,
"If I had known I was getting this, I would have
stepped down years ago."
Later, as centennial
celebration chairman, Lieberman helped plan a May 1987
dinner for 2,000 guests under tents on the football field
at which then-Secretary of State George Shultz hosted his
counterparts from Canada and Mexico.
In an interview after
accepting the centennial post, Lieberman joked that he
accepted the job "in a weak moment" as he spent
five hours sitting next to Kennedy on an airplane heading
for Washington, D.C.
Turning serious, he said
he viewed the centennial as an opportunity to show off
what Stanford had accomplished.
"When I first came
here, Stanford was not a great university," he said.
"It was a private school in the West; it was OK, but
nothing sensational. I watched it grow to be one of the
leading research universities in this country.
"This is an
accomplishment and I think that somehow we ought to bring
forth some of the things that we have done and show the
world, the public, just what a university can do, and
what it can contribute to society."
While chairing the
centennial, Lieberman became more active in faculty
governance, serving as chair of the Faculty Senate in
1987-88 and chair of the Advisory Board in 1989-90. In
June 1991, he was one of five faculty who proposed that
the Faculty Senate undertake a broad study of education
at Stanford in the context of severe budget cuts that
were on the horizon. This led to creation of the ad hoc
Senate Committee on Education and Scholarship -- also
known as the Zare committee -- which worked closely with
the university's leaders to provide faculty input on
budget decisions.
In February 1992, Kennedy
again leaned on Lieberman to serve the institution --
this time as the provost who later would spend long hours
teaching Gerhard Casper, a veteran of the University of
Chicago, about Stanford University. At the time, Kennedy
said that "Jerry has played all the provostial
positions and played them well. Most important of all, he
has the confidence and regard of the faculty."
In 1994 Casper announced
the creation of nine fellowships in Lieberman's name that
are awarded to graduate students with leadership
potential who intend to pursue careers in university
teaching and research. Casper told the assembled crowd
that Lieberman "is truly a remarkable citizen of the
university with the strongest academic and institutional
values."
Upon his retirement in
1995, 130 colleagues, friends and family members,
including four college presidents and a Nobel Prize
winner, gathered to mark the event. They presented
Lieberman with two volumes written by colleagues and
friends to reflect his lifelong interests: a collection
of scholarly papers for a special issue of the journal Probability
in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, plus a
book of essays titled Education in a Research
University. In his remarks at the event, Kennedy
praised Lieberman's blunt, honest manner and his habit of
thoughtfully injecting principles into discussions.
"Great institutions are built on people who care
about quality, as well as people who care about people.
Jerry has both of these characteristics in abundance and
we are lucky to have had him with us," he said.
Lieberman is survived by
his wife, Helen, of Stanford; daughter, Janet Lieberman
Argyres, son-in-law, Steve and their two sons, Brian and
Scottie, of Castro Valley; daughters, Joanne and Diana
Lieberman, of Palo Alto; son, Michael Lieberman, and
daughter-in-law, Susan Hanson, of Palo Alto; and his
sister, Shirley Ross, of Great Neck, N.Y.
The family prefers that
donations be made to the Gerald Lieberman Memorial Fund,
c/o The Office of Development, 301 Encina Hall, Stanford
University, Stanford, CA 94305. SR
Staff writer David
Salisbury and former News Service writer Karen
Bartholomew contributed to this story.
|
