Former U president and emeritus law professor Alfred Emery died Sunday, March 17. He was 83 and had been hospitalized for nearly three weeks.
“The university, after my mother, was his second love,” said Gary Emery, his son and a supervisor in the U’s General Accounting office. “He was always?working for the U’s betterment, he loved teaching more than anything else. He loved the students the faculty and the camaraderie here.”
The Emery family has been very grateful for the support the U has provided, Gary Emery said.
Emery was president of the U from 1971 to 1973. From 1967 to 1969 he was provost and before then he was vice president for academic affairs.
“I have nothing but unlimited admiration for Fred Emery,” said Boyer Jarvis, who was associate vice president for academic affairs while Emery was president. “I don’t think there ever was or ever will be someone with more dedication to the University of Utah than Fred Emery?Every breath he drew was part of his dedication to the university.”
Emery received his undergraduate and law degrees from the U. He began teaching law in 1948 and served as acting dean of the law school from 1961 to 1962.
Long-time colleague and Law Professor John Flynn described Emery as “one of those citizens of the place that it’s very hard to find and very hard to replace” and “an unsung hero of the university.”
Emery was a champion of free-speech issues, Flynn said, which was a serious issue during the 1960s while Emery was in the higher echelons of university administration.
“He believed it wasn’t a university unless [free speech] values were protected and preserved,” Flynn said.
Emery was also involved in “every nook and cranny” of the U’s operations, according to Flynn. While Emery was at the U, roads ran through the middle of campus, and he was “bound and determined” to get rid of them, and keep roads around the campus periphery, Flynn continued.
Law school Dean Scott Matheson will speak at funeral services for Emery this Friday.
“One of the things I’ll be talking about is how central to the success and the development of the law school that Fred Emery has been,” Matheson said. “I hope to be able to convey that in a way that does full respect to everything that he has done.”
The services will be held at 3088 S. Kenwood Street.
“He was eminently respected by the faculty,” said Dean of Students Stayner Landward, who was associate director of academic advising while Emery was president. Landward remembers Emery as an “avid basketball fan.”
“I would see him at every single home game,” Landward said.