Dear colleagues, I’m saddened to report that Kenneth Northcott, emeritus professor in Germanic Studies, died on June 4. He was a dear friend of fifty years. He served a term as Dean of Humanities, and was active in the Division in a number of remarkable ways. For quite a span of years he organized and chaired a series of evening gatherings by members of the Division, reporting to one another on their work. He was also avidly attentive to the theater.  Nick Rudall, director of Court Theatre, called on Kenneth on several occasions to play roles in productions at Court. He was especially fine, for example, in the role of the Waiter in George Bernard Shaw’s ‘You Never Can Tell’. Kenneth’s refined British accent and dapper well-dressed appearance perfectly fitted the part. It was he who repeatedly spoke the play’s proverbial and wry observation that ‘you never can tell’. Kenneth was equally adroit in Pinter’s ‘The Homecoming’, and still others. He will be missed in so many ways.

-David Bevington, Secretary of Faculty Emeriti and co-chair of the Emeriti Steering Committee

Read more about Professor Northcott via the University of Chicago Press and UChicago News.