Fred Rhodewalt Memorial Fund in Psychology

Fred Rhodewalt Memorial Fund in Psychology supports a psychology graduate student to recognize and encourage creative, innovative or transformative research.

 
Fred Rhodewalt came to the Department of Psychology in 1979 as a visiting professor. His colleagues quickly found him indispensible, and fortunately he loved Utah and our department. Fred was a man of many talents. He was a creative thinker, a persuasive writer, and a nationally recognized scholar in the area of personality.
 
He was an entertaining undergraduate teacher and an effective graduate supervisor, always emphasizing the importance of clear and well-reasoned critical analysis. He was a natural leader and a superb administrator, serving as Chair of the Department of Sociology and as Associate Dean of the Graduate School.
 
In each of these various roles he helped shape the direction of his field and the culture of our department. In particular, we remember him for his incisive wit, and how he used his incomparable sense of humor to push colleagues and students alike out of their intellectual comfort zones and into new ways of thinking about issues. He modeled and encouraged critical thinking, creativity, and openness to new ideas.