When the professors in the anthropology department would evaluate their students, William Kelleher was always the one to find the students’ best qualities.

“He saw them for not what they were, but what they could be,” said John Burdick, the chairman of the anthropology department in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

Kelleher, 63, died Wednesday from melanoma, after being on medical leave since last spring. He was an anthropology professor in Maxwell, as well as a cultural anthropologist and author. His research focused on the violence in Northern Ireland, as well as the relationship between a community’s memory and the peacemaking process.

His colleagues and friends described him with the same trio of adjectives: quiet, gentle and attentive. They said he had a strong sense of social justice and considered him the most well-read member of the department.

“The interesting thing was, Bill didn’t talk a lot about himself,” Burdick said. “He didn’t like to stand on a mountaintop and yell out all his credentials.”

Kelleher channeled his knowledge into teaching his students, something they always appreciated, said Burdick, who knew Kelleher for about eight years.

He added that his last memory of Kelleher was visiting him in hospice. While Kelleher was physically weak, he was “very present” intellectually, said Burdick. Near the end of the visit, they were laughing so loudly that a woman from the hospice came in and shut the door, implying they were a nuisance, he said.

Like others in her department, Deborah Pellow, a professor and undergraduate director in the anthropology department, met Kelleher during his interview for a job in Maxwell.

“He was kind and good and smart,” Pellow said. “I’ve lost a friend. I’ve lost a colleague. He was an important person to me.”

She called Kelleher a good teacher. He was nurturing and a “real proponent” of students, Pellow said.

When Azra Hromadzic first met Kelleher, she was in Philadelphia interviewing for her current position as an assistant anthropology professor position in Maxwell.

Kelleher listened attentively, she said, and had a “quiet energy.” His sense of humor, she said, was just as understated and gentle.

He rarely dominated the conversation at faculty meetings, but when he did talk, “people listened,” said Hromadzic.

Kelleher never forgot what it was like to be a new faculty member, Hromadzic said.

The students he worked with were very important to him, and he treated them and his junior colleagues with respect, she said.

He was critical and pushed his students intellectually, but “never stopped thinking of them as human beings,” Hromadzic said. “He knew how to make people work harder,” she said, and believed in their creative potential.

What she misses the most about him, she said, is his quiet presence and his support. She said she especially feels his absence at faculty meetings now.

She found out about Kelleher’s death, like others in the anthropology department, through a department email Wednesday morning before teaching a class.

Hromadzic said she’s still processing the news.

“You feel like you’re doing something but not functioning,” she said. “I feel like I’m living in an aquarium.”

Said Hromadzic: “He made my life better.”

Published on September 23, 2013 at 1:22 am

Contact Natsumi: najisaka@syr.edu