Clement Fisher Kent
| Clement Fisher Kent | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1927-03-15 Charleston, South Carolina |
| Died | 2020-08-17 Thunder Bay |
| Occupation | professor of mathematics |
| Employer | Lakehead University |
| Father | |
| Mother | |
| Partner | |
| Children | |
Clement Fisher Kent (15 March 1927 – 17 August 2020 (aged 93)) was an American mathematician who chaired the mathematics department at Lakehead University after moving to Canada in 1968.[1]
Early life and career
Kent was born on 15 March 1927 in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Clement Sr and Fannie (née Brown). He served in the United States Navy at the end of the Second World War and studied engineering, physics and mathematics at Georgia Tech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a PhD in mathematics. He repaid his GI Bill education working for the United States Department of Defense tracking Soviet submarines, then taught mathematics at the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland before emigrating in 1968 to chair the Department of Mathematics at Lakehead University.[1]
At Lakehead he helped found the computer science program and the unionisation of the faculty, and he retired in 1992. His interests were science, mathematics and astronomy; to relax he jogged every day and did carpentry, plumbing and mechanics as a skilled amateur.[1]
Family and death
Kent met his wife Elizabeth in 1946 and married her on 6 June 1948 in Birmingham, Alabama. He died in Thunder Bay on 17 August 2020, aged 93, and was cremated, with a private interment at St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Cemetery.[1]
He was survived by Elizabeth and their children Clement (with Leena, of Toronto), Anne (with Peter, of Thunder Bay) and Gene (with Karen, of Shuniah), along with grandchildren including Travis (with Holly) and great-grandson Liam, Leila (with James), Emma (with Brendan) and Jesse. His parents and two half-sisters died before him. Donations in his memory were suggested for the Alzheimer Society of Thunder Bay and Hospice Northwest.[1]
Other records
An obituary-index entry dated 22 August 2020 lists this person.[2]
In RALU News
2011 profile. The April 2011 issue profiled him as a founding member of Retirees' Association of Lakehead University. It describes his path from a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, through teaching at Case Western Reserve University, to Lakehead, and says that he did research secondments on the mathematics of finding submarines, first for the U.S. Navy and later for Canada's Department of Defence. Besides his academic work he had a long career in union organizing before retiring in 1992, and he was the driving force and "torch bearer" in forming RALU. In his own words, a small group tried in the mid-1970s to push the Lakehead faculty toward unionization and were rebuffed, and that experience lay behind his support for collective action, for RALU and for its affiliation with CURAC.[3]
He recalled that the Depression cost his father his life and his mother her job when he was seven, that he enlisted in the Navy at 17, and that after the Second World War he moved into physics and mathematics. He credited his wife Elizabeth, who worked as a medical laboratory technician while completing an M.Sc. and B.Ed., and said they had shared all decisions "for 63 years come June" (the marriage on 6 June 1948 on this page fits). The most important decision was to emigrate to Canada in 1968; all three children stayed in Canada. In retirement he kept teaching part time, giving 17 half-courses in the first ten years according to the registrar's record and donating the stipends to student support, and for some years he started and ran a computer contest for high-school students from across Northwestern Ontario, followed by a mathematics contest.[3]
Roles in RALU. He was nominated as vice-president for 2011–12,[4] was listed as vice-president in April 2014[5] and resigned from that post in 2015 for health reasons; the president's report of September 2015 thanked him as one of the founding members who had given sterling service.[6] A 2017 history of the association says that he bought the account book that thirty-eight people signed at the formative meeting of November 2007,[7] and in 2018 he was recalled as the member who gave the association its vision as a consultancy where members could get good information on matters such as insurance.[8]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Entry for Clement Fisher Kent, "In Memoriam", Retirees' Association of Lakehead University, https://www.lakeheadretirees.ca/in-memoriam/ (accessed 31 October 2026). Archived copy on datum.locker.
- ↑ The Chronicle-Journal, 22 August 2020, p. 4(D)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Profile of Founding Member Clement Kent", PDF pp. 1–2, RALU News, vol. 3, no. 2 (April 2011), Retirees' Association of Lakehead University. Archived copy on datum.locker (original PDF listed at the association's archived newsletters page).
- ↑ "Nominations", PDF p. 6, RALU News, vol. 4, no. 1 (September 2011), Retirees' Association of Lakehead University. Archived copy on datum.locker (original PDF listed at the association's archived newsletters page).
- ↑ Executive list, PDF p. 1, RALU News, vol. 6, no. 3 (April 2014), Retirees' Association of Lakehead University. Archived copy on datum.locker (original PDF listed at the association's archived newsletters page).
- ↑ President report, PDF p. 4, RALU News, vol. 8, no. 1 (September 2015), Retirees' Association of Lakehead University. Archived copy on datum.locker (original PDF listed at the association's archived newsletters page).
- ↑ "In the Beginning", PDF p. 1, RALU News, vol. 9, no. 2 (May 2017), Retirees' Association of Lakehead University. Archived copy on datum.locker (original PDF listed at the association's archived newsletters page).
- ↑ "Membership Drive", PDF p. 2, RALU News, vol. 10, no. 3 (May 2018), Retirees' Association of Lakehead University. Archived copy on datum.locker (original PDF listed at the association's archived newsletters page).