Necrology

Dean Alfange, Jr. '50

May. 6, 1930-Jan. 1, 2023

Dean Alfange, Jr. ’50 died in Greenfield, Mass., on Jan. 1, 2023. Born in New York City on May 6, 1930, he came to Hamilton from McBurney School in Manhattan. On the Hill, he majored in both chemistry and mathematics and was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. As a freshman he joined WHC, the college radio station, and during his junior and senior years he managed the baseball team. He was on the staff of The Hamiltonian as a sophomore and became its editor as a senior, when he was also on the Publications Board and inducted into Pi Delta Epsilon, the national honorary collegiate journalism fraternity.

From Hamilton, Dean proceeded to Tufts University to begin graduate studies in chemistry and, at the end of fall semester in 1951, he was awarded a Master of Science. As it turned out, that would be the end of his engagement with chemistry. 

In 1952, he joined the Air Force and served for five years, primarily on Okinawa and in Taiwan but later in California. Honorably discharged in September 1957 with the rank of first lieutenant, he began formally studying political science, having completed several courses through the University of Colorado’s Extension Department while in the military. He had found his vocation. 

Also in 1957 he met Barbara Vance, then a student at the University of Colorado, at a dance in Denver. Afterward, they went with friends to Stapleton Airport for coffee and, several days later, he invited her to the movies. They were married on June 6, 1959, and remained so until his death. 

In 1960, Dean earned a Master of Arts in political science from the University of Colorado and then entered the doctoral program in that field at Cornell University. Among his student colleagues at Cornell were two men who later became affiliated with Hamilton: Frank Lorenz, editor of College publications, and Professor of History David Millar.

Completing his coursework in 1963, he joined Lafayette College as an instructor. Dean’s doctoral dissertation concerned the Supreme Court’s role in protecting freedom of expression, and upon its completion and defense he was awarded his doctorate degree in 1967. That same year, he joined the political science faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which was his academic home for the rest of his career. He retired in 1999 as professor emeritus and was subsequently honored by former students who established the Dean Alfange Lecture Series in Constitutional Law. Dean also served the university in administrative capacities. From 1970 through 1975 he was dean of the social and behavioral science faculty and became acting vice chancellor of academic affairs for the 1975-76 academic year, a role he again assumed in 1983 for one year. 

Constitutional law and politics being the focus of his research, he was invited to be a visiting scholar at Yale Law School during the 1977-78 academic year and at Stanford University Law School in 1985 and again in 1992. 

Beyond his scholarly interests, Dean reported in his 50th reunion yearbook that “I try to deny the existence of the present day by immersing myself as much as possible in the music, movies, and culture of the 1920s and 1930s.” Visits to New York City aided him greatly in this “immersion.” Dean took an active interest in and supported various off-Broadway theatrical groups, including Mint Theatre Co., the Irish Repertory Theatre, the Gingold Theatrical Group, and Musicals Tonight. He also patronized venues in which jazz in the styles of the 1920s and ’30s was performed: one of his favorite bands was Vince Giordano and his Nighthawks Orchestra. He also collected numerous tapes and recordings of the music as well as videotapes of pre-World War II movies.

Dean prized his Hamilton education. He recalled in two separate reunion yearbooks, “exposure to faculty members such as [Professor of Chemistry] Asa McKinney, [Professor of Chemistry] Lawrence Yourtee, and [Professor of Mathematics] Brewster Gere … inspired me to pursue college teaching as a career and to [Professor of English] George Nesbitt who terrified me at the time, but whose lasting effect on my thinking processes I only later came to understand and appreciate fully. I hope to have been able to have a similar impact on at least a small percentage of my students over the years.” Even as he lamented “the racial and religious prejudice inherent in the fraternity system, as well as in much of American higher education at that time, I try to remember the good friends I made, what Hamilton taught me about the vital importance of learning — about myself and the world in which we live.”

As a response to the invaluable lessons he learned on the Hill, Dean was a regular contributor to the Hamilton Fund and a member of Joel Bristol Associates. Additionally, he and Barbara endowed the Dean Alfange, Class of 1922, Distinguished Visiting Professorship, named in honor of his father, for scholars in a field related to the history, philosophy, or culture of Ancient Greece, one of his father’s abiding interests.

Dean Alfange, Jr. is survived by his wife.

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