Raphael S. Ezekiel, associate professor of psychology, retired from active faculty status on May 31, 1995, after teaching in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts for 31 years.
Professor Ezekiel received his B.A degree from the University of Chicago in 1950 and his Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1964. He served in the U.S. Army from 1953-55 and did research at Georgetown University (1955-60) and the University of California at Berkeley (1962-64) prior to joining the University of Michigan faculty as an assistant professor of psychology in 1964. He was promoted to associate professor in 1970.
Professor Ezekiel had a special commitment to undergraduate education, especially in the area of creating learning tasks in which students had to integrate traditional academic work with insights gained from field work in the community. He asked students to apply theories of intergroup relations to the knowledge they gained from observing groups in action and from interviewing members of real groups in society. Over the years, students viewed his courses as exceptional opportunities to use academic knowledge to understand the actual worlds they live in as students and the worlds they expect to inherit as college graduates.
Professor Ezekiel's long-standing research interests were in the area of the social psychology of intergroup life in the United States. From his classic research article on the impact of the Peace Corps on the lives of volunteers through his book, Voices from the Corner, on the ways inner city men construct the meaning of their lives, and most recently in a new book, The Racist Mind, on the beliefs and self-conceptions of members of extremist groups, Professor Ezekiel has illuminated how the most committed, the most disadvantaged, and the most alienated talk about themselves and others in an often divided society.
The Regents now salute this distinguished teacher and scholar for his dedicated service by naming Raphael S. Ezekiel associate professor emeritus of psychology.
