In Memoriam: Curators’ Professor Emeritus Eugene J. Meehan

(From "Political Science Alumnews", Fall 2002, The University of Missiouri St. Louis)

Curators’ Professor Emeritus Eugene J. Meehan died Tuesday, October 8, 2002, of pneumonia at a nursing home in Orange City, Florida. He was 79 and formerly lived in Frontenac.

Born in Peckville, Pennsylvania, he joined the Army Air Forces after high school. He served as a fighter pilot in World War II, flew 88 combat missions missions and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.

After he was honorably discharged as a captain, Gene earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science from Ohio State University. He completed a doctorate in political science at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1954.

Gene then served in London as the deputy education director for the Air Force and later as an education specialist for the U.S. Armed Forces Institute in Madison, Wisconsin.

He then taught on the faculties of Rutgers University, Brandeis University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1970, he became a professor of political science at UMSL. He also served as a staff urban planner at the university’s Center for Metropolitan Studies.

In 1986, he received the Weldon Spring Presidential Award for Research and Creativity. While teaching at the university, Meehan served as a fellow or visiting scholar at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study the Swedish Institute of GoteborUniversity and the University of South Africa.

He was made a curators’ professor at UMSL in 1987. He retired in 1992.

In his career, he published 27 books, including the widely used The Thinking Game: A Guide to Effective Study.

He also wrote many reports and articles, which often defended his argument that the purpose of scholarship in social sciences was knowledge that could be used to improve the human condition.

Gene published two volumes on public housing that dealt with the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex in St. Louis.

He traveled to Central and South American countries to develop programs to train government officials. He also consulted with groups in Israel, Slovenia and South Africa on how to improve university education. Survivors include his wife, Alice McCuskey Meehan of Orange City, and his sister, Naiomi Gardner of Elmira, N.Y.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Eugene J. Meehan Scholarship at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, College of Arts and Sciences, 8001 Natural Bridge Road, St.

Louis, Missouri 63121-4499.