In Memory of Emeritus Professor Robert E. Kennedy, Jr

Robert E ("Bob") Kennedy, Jr was a demographer who had a gift for translating statistics into stories. Bob’s sociological lens on life was formed through a lifetime of exploration. Once Robert came to the Sociology department at the UMN in the late 1960s, he spent three decades teaching both large and small sociology and demography courses. In the mid 1980s, he developed a supplementary Intro Sociology textbook entitled “Life Choices: Applying Sociology” that cast demographics into the life-course decisions undergraduate students would face. Through all of his friendships and moves, Bob engaged and entertained his friends with deep, creative, and contrarian thinking, able to engage in lively discourses on topics as diverse as food supplements, UFOs and ancient peoples, religion, society, investing, quantum theory, economics, and politics. Everyone who met Bob found him interesting and engaging, full of genuine curiosity about them and about the world. We will all miss him dearly.