Sarajane Levey Avidon

Sarajane Levey Avidon (C64), 64, Chicago, March 29. An eclectic artist, Ms. Avidon helped found and performed with the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, appeared in films including
Opportunity Knocks with Dana Carvey and co-wrote two murder mysteries. She also did voice-over and on-camera work for TV and radio commercials.

Ms. Avidon won national awards for her postcard-size collages. Her book Avidon Atlas of Places You Can’t Go was exhibited at the Chicago Hand Bookbinders 2006 Exhibition at the Northwestern University Library.

Ms. Avidon is survived by her husband, former 44th Ward Chicago alderman Dick Simpson; a son, August; a daughter, Kate; brothers Michael and Andrew; and two grandchildren.

George M. Foster Jr.

George M. Foster Jr., (WCAS35), 92, Berkeley, Calif., March 18. After studying under Northwestern’s Melville Herskovits, Mr. Foster explored social change in Mexican peasant communities and founded the field of medical anthropology. His research looked closely at why developing countries accept or reject Western health systems and how populations transmit medical beliefs and practices.

Mr. Foster traveled widely as a consultant to UNICEF and the World Health Organization, among others.

A former president of the American Anthropological Association, he spent more than 25 years on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.

Mr. Foster is survived by a son, Jeremy; a daughter, Melissa; five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Glenn Olds

Glenn A. Olds, (G45), 85, Sherwood, Ore., March 11. An ordained Methodist minister, diplomat, university professor and former pro boxer, Mr. Olds became president of Kent State University in 1971, six months after four students were killed during protests against the Vietnam War. He later revived a bankrupt Alaska Methodist (now Pacific) University and turned a $4.5 million debt into a $45 million endowment in 10 years.

Mr. Olds served as a consultant to President Kennedy on the creation of the Peace Corps. He was later a commissioner of natural resources for the state of Alaska.

Mr. Olds is survived by his wife, Eva Spelts Olds (C44), a daughter, Linda, a son, G. Richard, and three grandchildren.

Edwina Snyder Tarry

Edwina Snyder Tarry (GSESP38), 94, Chicago, May 1. A lifelong educator, Mrs. Tarry, with her late husband, George W. Tarry, was a major benefactor of Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy and Feinberg School of Medicine.
The Tarrys made the leadership gift for construction of the Tarry Research and Education Building on Northwestern’s Chicago campus. The 16-story building, which opened in 1990, houses faculty research scientists and clinicians and includes an ophthalmology laboratory sponsored by the couple.

The Tarrys also endowed the George and Edwina Tarry Professorship in Ophthalmology at Feinberg, where Mr. Tarry served as a faculty member for nearly four decades.

Mrs. Tarry served as an honorary member of the Feinberg School of Medicine committee during Campaign Northwestern, the University’s recent five-year fundraising effort.

More recently Mrs. Tarry donated funds for SESP’s Tarry Center for Collaborative Teaching and Learning, which opened in 2003. The center occupies the third floor of Annenberg Hall on Northwestern’s Evanston campus. Researchers at the Tarry Center work to raise the level of teaching and learning in secondary schools by demonstrating how computing and networking technologies can be integrated into classrooms. The center is also used as a training facility for teachers.

The Tarrys endowed the Edwina S. Tarry Professorship in Education Studies at SESP as well. Mrs. Tarry also helped fund the Ron Burton Academic Advising Center at Anderson Hall.

She is survived by a niece, Carol, and a cousin, Alice.