Roy Rosenzweig, 1950-2007

My professor and the Director of the Center for History and New Media where I have a fellowship, Roy Rosenzweig, passed away yesterday due to lung cancer. He was a wonderful man--brilliant at his specialty. He led the vanguard of digital history and opened to the world countless possibilities for public history in accessing the masses. His scholarship was sound and his efforts were astounding. He has probably impacted the way every historian has become involved with the Internet.

And he was also kind-hearted. He was a quiet man but he smiled often and his eyes twinkled. He made such conscientious decisions in our assignments at the Center, and he was supportive of our ideas and our efforts. He was eager to hear our opinions and to use our talents. I loved that in his effort to teach our PhD colloquium this semester, he wanted to know what we as students wanted to learn. His sincere desire was to help us. I remember walking with him from the last class he attended back to the Center. His steps were slow and his breath was labored. And yet he wanted to know how my semester was going and where my research was taking me. I'll never forget the last concern that he had with my life: that I not take a job that would improve my financial situation because it would hamper my studies and my scholarship. He believed in me and for that I honor him.