[Xmca-l] Roland Tharp

[Gordon Wells]

From: Lois Yamauchi <yamauchi@hawaii.edu>
Date: Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 7:39 AM
Subject: Roland Tharp
To: coe-l@lists.hawaii.edu, edpsych-l@lists.hawaii.edu
Cc: Clifford O'Donnell <cliffo@hawaii.edu>


Dear Colleagues:

A close friend and treasured colleague for over 45 years, Roland Tharp,
died on December 25th. He touched the lives of all who were privileged to
know him with his kindness, generosity of spirit, and humanity. Roland was
a renaissance human being: scholar, theorist, researcher, educator, poet,
writer, and film director. He combined scientific rigor with an artistic
mind, appreciating the cultural, mystical and spiritual among the many ways
of knowing.

For more than a decade, Roland taught a graduate seminar each summer in the
Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Hawai‘i. He was
Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Universities of of Hawai‘i and
California-Santa Cruz and was also a Research Professor, Senior Scientist,
and Director in the Graduate School of Education, University of
California-Berkeley. In his eight years at Berkeley, he received $32M in
competitive awards. His multidisciplinary research and theory spanned over
52 years and 250 publications.

He began his professional career in Arizona where he founded the first
graduate program in Community Psychology (University of Arizona, Master of
Arts). In Arizona he formulated his Triadic Model of behavioral
intervention with family and community members as change agents. His book
with Bud Wetzel based on this work, Behavior Modification in the Natural
Environment, is a recurrent Citations Classic. For the last 30 years he
continued his work in Arizona by serving on the Board of Directors of the
Intermountain Centers for Human Development providing community-based
residential and support services to at-risk individuals and persons with
disabilities.

At the University of Hawai‘i, he created a system of educational reform
based on the cultural values and strengths of the Native Hawaiian community
(the Kamehameha Early Education Project). His book with Ronald Gallimore
based on this work, Rousing Minds to Life: Teaching and Learning in Social
Context, won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award. This system of educational
reform has been studied intensely and published widely for Native
Hawaiians, Navajo, Zuni, urban mixed ethnicity poverty neighborhoods in
Houston, Chicago and Indianapolis, Latino immigrant and migrant communities
in Northern California, Appalachian urban migrants in Louisville, and in
the recent national educational reform in urban migrants in Louisville, and
in the recent national educational reform in Greenland.

Also at the University of Hawai‘i, he founded the Clinical Studies graduate
program, guided the program to APA accreditation, and became a prominent
professor in our doctoral program in Community and Cultural Psychology. He
served as President of the Hawai‘i Psychological Association and the
Hawai‘i Literary Arts Council, and was awarded the Regents Medal for
Excellence in Teaching.

In addition to his accomplishments in psychology and education, Roland
received major awards for his fiction, poetry and films. Among many others,
these include the Ida and Charles Freeman Short Story Award for Cat-House,
a Robert Frost Fellowship in Poetry, the Grand Prize, Atlantic Monthly
National Contest (Essay) for Romanesque Sculpture: A Study in the Hideous,
and the American Film Magazine Award, Hawai‘i International Film Festival,
for his film My Aunt May.

Roland maintained his intellectual curiosity right up to the end of his 85
years. In his late 70s and early 80s he traveled frequently to Greenland to
consult on their educational reforms. At 80 he published his last book of
poetry, Mad With Flowers And Tears. At 82 he published his theory locating
the nexus of influence-for-change within the psychosocial systems and
social networks of communities: Delta: Toward a Unified and Universal
Theory and Practice of Influence and Change.

In his last two years, several of his poems were set to music and released
as a CD, and the 10th edition of Self-Directed Behavior: Self Modification
for Personal Adjustment was published with David Watson. Roland's latest
article, Cultural-Historical Activity Theory and Cultural Community
Psychology: The Potential for Greater Commonality is in the current issue
of Mind, Culture, and Activity.

Roland is listed in the Outstanding Educators of America, Who’s Who in
American Education, Poets of America, the International Who’s Who in
Poetry, and Poets’ Encyclopedia.

Let us celebrate his remarkable life and continue to be inspired by his
many works.* Please join us at a memorial service for Roland on*

*Sunday, January 24 at Bishop Memorial Chapel, Kamehameha Schools, Kapalama
Campus, noon until 4 pm. *
Aloha,

Clifford R. O'Donnell, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, Psychology

Lois A. Yamauchi, PhD,
Professor, Educational Psychology