Don Browning, a professor in the Divinity School and a leading scholar on marriage in America, died June 3 at his home in Hyde Park. He was 76.

A service for Browning will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday, June 10 at the Hyde Park Union Church. The Divinity School plans to hold an additional memorial service in the fall.

Don Browning, the Alexander Campbell Professor Emeritus of Ethics and the Social Sciences in the Divinity School, studied the influence of religion on American family life, as well as the intersection of psychology and religion. For more than a decade, he was the director of the Divinity School’s Religion, Culture and the Family Project.

“Don Browning was a stalwart and utterly collegial citizen of Swift Hall and the wider University,” said Richard Rosengarten, dean of the Divinity School. “We miss him and we mourn his passing, even as we recall his myriad accomplishments.”

Browning was born Jan. 13, 1934 in Trenton, Mo. He received his BD (1959), AM (1962) and PhD (1964) from the Divinity School. He was an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). From 1977 to 1983, he was dean of the University of Chicago Disciples Divinity House.

Browning’s early work focused on the integration of psychology and pastoral care. His second book, Generative Man: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1974.

He was instrumental in the advancement of the practical theology movement, which emphasizes the integration of religious theory and religious practice. His 1991 book, A Fundamental Practical Theology, is widely considered a classic in the field.

In 1990, Browning received a grant from the Lilly Endowment to start the Religion, Culture and the Family Project. Over the course of the project, Browning examined the social implications of the decline of marriage. The research resulted in numerous books and scholarly articles, as well as a nationally televised, two–hour documentary, “Marriage: Just a Piece of Paper?”

“He had an amazingly capacious mind that could see how religious and moral questions need to be explored from a variety of vantage points,” said William Schweiker, the Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor in the Divinity School and the College. “He could pinpoint the strength and weakness of an argument and indicate this in a forceful, but gentle way.”

“It’s going to be impossible to find someone else to do what he did,” said Jean Bethke Elshtain, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics in the Divinity School. “He represented something unique. He had an unusual combination of expertise. As a scholar of the family, he believed you had to look at history, you had to look at sociological context, you had to look at law.”

As a colleague, “he was absolutely wonderful. He was thoughtful, engaged and attentive,” Elshtain said. “If you wanted to construct an ideal colleague, he would be my image.”

Browning, a longtime Hyde Park resident, was an avid moviegoer who loved spending time with his grandchildren and searching out local ethnic restaurants, said his son Chris.

In addition to his son, Browning is survived by his wife, Carol; his daughter, Elizabeth; and his granddaughters, Kristin and Lydia.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to The Browning Family Fund at the Disciples Divinity House of the University of Chicago. Donations can be sent to: 1156 E. 57th St., Chicago, IL 60637. They can also be made online at http://ddh.uchicago.edu.

John Haugeland, a scholar known for his work on philosophy of mind, died June 23 following a May 22 heart attack that occurred during a conference held in his honor. He was 65.

At the conference, James Conant, Chairman of Philosophy and the Chester D. Tripp Professor in Humanities, Philosophy and the College, praised Haugeland’s “profound and lasting contributions to many different areas of philosophy.” In particular, Conant noted Haugeland’s work on the existentialist philosopher Heidegger and on the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence.

Haugeland, the David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor Emeritus in Philosophy, joined the Chicago faculty in 1999. From 2004–07, he was chair of the Philosophy Department.

“He was an exemplary chair,” said Robert Pippin, the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor of Social Thought, Philosophy and the College. “John had absolutely no shred of egoism. He was very sweet and very considerate, but he was also someone with firmly–held principles about philosophy and academic life.”

Born March 13, 1945, Haugeland received his BS in Physics from Harvey Mudd College in 1966, and his PhD in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1976. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh from 1974 until coming to UChicago in 1999.

Haugeland’s book, Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea (1985), has been translated into five languages. It received acclaim not only for its analysis of artificial intelligence, but also for its lucid and engaging style.

That down–to–earth quality was typical of Haugeland’s work, said Clark Remington, a graduate student who worked closely with Haugeland until his death. In his well–known paper, “The Intentionality All–Stars,” Haugeland explored the philosophical debate over intentionality by assigning various philosophers to different positions in baseball. “It’s a delightful, hilarious article describing who in the field would be second base, left field, pitcher, etc., and it’s incredibly insightful. It’s typical that he would use humor to get right to the heart of something,” Remington said.

In 1998, Haugeland published Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind, a collection of essays from throughout his career. “If I had to do a ‘how–to’ book on ‘how to do philosophy,’ this essay would be one I would dissect at length, revealing its virtues,” philosopher Daniel C. Dennett wrote of Haugeland’s essay “Representational Genera.”

In 2003, Haugeland received a Guggenheim Fellowship to begin work on Heidegger Disclosed, a bold and unique reinterpretation of Heidegger’s Being and Time. At the time of Haugeland’s death, the book was two–thirds complete. “If it’s published, it’s sure to be one of the most important works on Heidegger,” said Pippin.

Family and friends remember Haugeland’s quick wit and his caring relationship with his colleagues. “Everyone knew he had a deep love and concern for philosophy and for his students,” Remington said.

In his spare time, Haugeland was an avid movie–watcher who loved the Coen brothers and never tired of The Princess Bride, said his wife Joan Wellman.

A gifted woodworker and handyman, Haugeland liked to boast that he “certainly owned more nuts and bolts than most philosophers (and possibly more than any).”

Family friend Robbie Kendall remembers, “If there was something that needed to be fixed, his first instinct was to fix it.”

In addition to his wife, Haugeland is survived by his sisters, Cyndi Munch and Carol Magnuson; his son, John Christian Haugeland III; and his stepdaughters, Jennifer Swain and Emma Wellman.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the University of Chicago Philosophy Department, Stuart 202, 1115 E. 58th St., Chicago, IL 60637, for the John Haugeland Undergraduate Fund.

Charles M. Jacobs, AB,’53, JD’56, a founding member of the Compass Players improvisational troupe who went on to invent a quality-control methodology that made evidence-based health care widely available, died Oct. 25 in Boston. He was 77 and a resident of Brookline, Mass.

Born Charles David Jacobs on May 28, 1933, in Brooklyn, N.Y., he acquired the middle initial “M” through a process now obscure to family members, but it stuck.

Jacobs won a scholarship to the University of Chicago at the age of 16. This launched a lifetime of innovation, punctuated by spectacular failures and equally spectacular successes. According to Jacobs, “the University of Chicago saw something in me that no one else saw — they bet on this unknown kid.”

Jacobs’ curiosity and willingness to explore all possibilities — “put everything down on a whiteboard” he would say, “don’t say ‘no’ to anything” — resulted in an eclectic career. As an undergraduate, he worked with Paul Sills and David Shepherd to form the “Tonight at 8:30” repertory company. He was one of the initiators of Compass Players, the country’s first improvisational theater and the predecessor of Second City.

Although trained as a lawyer rather than a doctor, Jacobs was among the first to realize in the 1970s that health care quality and efficiency could be improved by using evidence-based clinical data to evaluate the appropriateness of medical care and the effectiveness of treatment. By analyzing data at the individual patient level and then aggregating the treatment results for thousands of patients, his approach established expectations for the best achievable care.

As associate director of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals from 1970-75, Jacobs established its Quality Review Center and was principal author of Measuring the Quality of Patient Care: The Rationale for Outcome Audit (1976). In 1976, Jacobs founded InterQual (now owned by McKesson Robbins) to implement the concept of evidenced-based health care. The InterQual system is now used in the majority of U.S. hospitals, as well as government agencies and private health care plans, to evaluate the level of services required by each patient.

“Today we hear and see countless reports about how health care and payment reforms will create the higher-value U.S. health care system we desperately need. Jacobs saw how all this would come together long before others even grasped the potential,” said Stuart Rosenberg, president of Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, on whose board Jacobs served as an outside director.

Jacobs was a tireless teacher and advocate of improving the performance of doctors and hospitals so patients could receive the best care. The real measure of his impact is the clarity of his understanding as to the changes it would take to make the U.S. health care system work most effectively.

In a 1987 interview in the AMA’s American Medical News, Jacobs answered a question about how health care quality measurements would evolve over the next decade by predicting: “Payers will be moving toward adopting reimbursement systems that provide financial incentives for high quality, and that will require severity adjustors. The competitive marketplace will reward the qualitative, efficient provider, and penalize the extravagant non-qualitative provider and essentially drive him out of business.”

“He is, of course, being proven correct on all fronts, only his dates were a bit off,” Rosenberg noted. “It has taken the system more than 20 years to catch up with implementing, even partially, the reforms he so clearly understood had to happen back in 1987.”

Jacobs was listed in Makers & Shakers of America’s Health Policy by Medicine & Health (1985). He received a founder’s award from the American College of Utilization Review Physicians in 1986 for “outstanding contributions to the issues of the Quality of Health Care.” In 1988, the AMA’s American Medical News named him its man of the year. In 1998 he was made an honorary life member of the American College of Medical Quality.

Jacobs’ last creative project was to inspire and help produce Madame White Snake, an opera based on a 1,000-year-old Chinese legend. The opera was a birthday gift from his wife Cerise Lim Jacobs, who wrote the libretto. It started as a song cycle, but Jacobs saw the potential for something much bigger. Soon, the 10-minute piece that was to have been performed in his living room for a small group of friends became a full-length opera commissioned by Opera Boston and the Beijing Music Festival. Acclaimed American Chinese composer Zhou Long composed the music.

Directed by Robert Woodruff, Madame White Snake had its world premiere in Boston in February 2010. It became the highest-grossing production in the history of Opera Boston.

“Charles’ creative vision, strategic thinking, laser focus, and tireless optimism were central to the project’s success,” said Carole Charnow, former general director of Opera Boston and now president and CEO of Boston Children’s Museum.

The opera had its Asia premiere in Beijing on Oct. 27, and the performance was dedicated to Jacobs.

“New opera is the most complex art form to create today,” Cerise Jacobs said. “Charles was a man who believed that it is possible for individuals to create beauty in this world and this is the artistic part of his legacy.”

In addition to Cerise, Jacobs is survived by his brother, Frank; his children, Emily MacKean, Jessica Jacobs and Pirate Epstein; and grandson, Dashiel Jacobs MacKean.

David Logan, AB’39, JD’41, a longtime supporter of the arts and investigative reporting who left an enduring legacy at the University of Chicago, has died.

The prominent Chicago attorney and investor died of natural causes Jan. 22 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He was 93.

The mark that Logan left on campus includes the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, the future hub for the University’s robust arts scene, slated to open in spring 2012. His support has been felt across the entire University, through gifts supporting the Medical Center, the Biological Sciences, the Humanities, the College and the Law School.

“The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts will be a new foundation for the arts at the University of Chicago and will inspire creativity and collaboration across the artistic spectrum,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “This would not be possible without the remarkable generosity and vision of David Logan.  David's transformative philanthropy will leave an important legacy on our campus, and I look forward to seeing the impact of his generosity on our community in the years to come.”

Providing a catalyst for the arts was the Logan family’s goal in 2007 when David Logan, his wife Reva, their three sons, and their nine grandchildren, gave the University a $35 million cash gift — one of the largest single donor gifts to the University in its history.

“My Mom and Dad have always believed that the arts tell us who we are,” said his eldest son, Dan Logan, during the center’s groundbreaking in May 2010. “They inspire us, and they make us better people.”

"David Logan was passionate in his love of the arts, in his respect for the University's values, and in his commitment to serving the community,” said Larry Norman, Deputy Provost for the Arts and Associate Professor in Romance Languages & Literatures. “The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts perfectly crystallizes these passions; his legacy will live here for generations."

The Logan family described the new center for the arts as David Logan’s “greatest project.”

“We have drawn deep inspiration from David Logan’s active role in building the University’s artistic community,” said William Michel, Executive Director of the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts. “Last fall, when David toured the construction site for the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, his enthusiasm and sense of anticipation reminded us of the historic opportunity that he made possible. His energy, insight and creativity will continue to guide our work at the new center.”

A 1939 graduate of the College and a 1941 graduate of the Law School, Logan grew up in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. He worked as an attorney before turning to investing.

A devotee of jazz music, he also was the initial funder of The Jazz Loft Project, featuring photographs and music taped by W. Eugene Smith, of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. The Project has been exhibited at Lincoln Center and the Chicago Cultural Center. The Reva and David Logan Foundation also co-funded Ken Burns’ documentary series “Jazz” on PBS.

Journalism is another of the Logans’ longstanding passions. Their foundation endowed a chair in investigative reporting at the University of California-Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. The foundation also sponsors the annual Logan Symposium, the leading international conference for investigative reporters and students, in addition to supporting the PBS investigative news program “Frontline.”

Logan called investigative reporting “the guardian of the public interest.”

The Logans have been active supporters of the arts and civic projects throughout the Chicago area. David Logan served on the Illinois Arts Council for 29 years. He headed its Budget Committee and Arts in Education Committee, and received the first Governor's Special Recognition Award for Distinguished Service in Education and the Arts. The Logans also have been major supporters of the Chicago Arts Partnership for the Arts, the multicultural literary organization The Guild Complex, the Chicago Small Schools Competition and the Reva Logan Gardens at the Lincoln Park Zoo. The Logan Foundation also funded a chair in Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation at Chicago's Rehabilitation Institute.

David Logan is survived by his wife, Reva; three sons — Dan of Alexandria, Va.; Richard, of Oxford, England; and Jonathan, of Berkeley, Calif. — as well as nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Private services are set for Wednesday, with memorial services planned at a later date.

Morgan Buerkett, a rising second-year in the College, died Sunday, July 24 in a private plane crash. She was 19.

Her parents, Jon and Dana Buerkett, also died in the accident.

“She will be painfully missed,” said Susan Art, Dean of Students for the College.

Buerkett, also known as “Moe,” was a resident of Woodward House in her first year. She was a member of the volleyball team and belonged to the Delta Gamma sorority.

“She was the kid everybody liked immediately,” said Vanessa Walby, head coach of the UChicago volleyball program. “She was very determined and very hopeful.”

“If there was anyone who made the most out of every day, it was Morgan,” said Tara Anantharam, Morgan’s freshman roommate.

Buerkett, a 2010 graduate of St. Thomas More High School in Champaign, loved watching old movies; The Birds and Singin’ in the Rain were among her favorites. She liked the music of Foster the People, Lykke Li and Incubus, horseback riding, and the feeling of breaking in a new pair of tennis shoes.

Katie Trela, Buerkett’s volleyball teammate and a sorority sister, said her friend “commanded attention and admiration the second she entered a room.”

“She was beautiful and passionate, poised and graceful, confident but modest,” said Trela, a rising third-year. “The greatest tragedy is for the people who will never receive the privilege of knowing her.”

A campus memorial service for Buerkett will be planned for early Fall Quarter.