Ted Taubeneck, a generous supporter of University of Arizona arts and humanities programs who enthusiastically embodied the ideal of lifelong learning, died last month. He was 91.
As a longtime board member and chair of the Humanities Seminars Program, Taubeneck’s efforts were instrumental in quadrupling the program’s enrollment. And as a voracious student himself, Taubeneck was taking his 121st and 122nd Humanities Seminar courses when he passed away.
“Ted was a dear and generous friend, one of the strongest supporters of the College of Humanities,” said Dean Alain-Philippe Durand. “He was a great man and one of our champions. I know we will miss his wit and laugh, as well as our conversations about the humanities and even about soccer great Pelé. He and his family are in our thoughts.”
Philanthropists who gave not only money but time and talent, Taubeneck and his wife Shirley supported numerous organizations, both on campus and across the Tucson community, from the Humanities Seminars Program and UA Poetry Center to the Arizona Repertory Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Arizona Historical Society, Rogue Theatre, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music and True Concord vocal group.
In 2016, the Association of Fundraising Professionals Southern Arizona Chapter presented Ted and Shirley Taubeneck with the Spirit of Philanthropy Award for their contributions to HSP and to honor their 90th birthdays.
“Ted was a good friend and one of the most important contributors to making HSP one of the world leaders in university-sponsored adult education,” said Malcolm Compitello, director of HSP and Head of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. “His vision and energy are greatly responsible for helping the program survive difficult transitions and prosper. All of us associated with HSP will greatly miss his good will, his counsel, his wisdom and his friendship.”
Originally from Bronxville, New York, Taubeneck graduated from Princeton University in 1948 and Harvard Law School in 1951. After moving to Tucson in 2000, he began taking courses in the Humanities Seminars Program and became one of the program’s most avid students. In 2015, he was one of three students awarded for having enrolled in the most courses. Taubeneck played a major role in guiding HSP through difficult years following the great recession, said current Humanities Seminars Board Chair Janet Hollander.
“Ted made innumerable contributions. He was indefatigable,” she said. “The importance of his service to the Humanities Seminars Program and the Tucson community cannot be overestimated.”
The Humanities Seminars Program was founded in 1984 and offers a wide range of classes taught by top UA professors, with more than 20,000 community members having enrolled in more than 350 classes. Board members help select the programming and professors and Taubeneck devoted years to the program, first joining the board in 2008 and finishing his third three-year term last summer. He served as Board Chair from 2012 to 2014 and over his tenure also served on the program committee, finance committee and subcommittee on Superior Teaching Awards.
Kerstin Miller, senior coordinator for the Humanities Seminars Program, built a friendship with Taubeneck shortly after he began taking classes and remembers him as an exemplary student and a cornerstone of the program’s growth.
“Ted put his heart and soul into the Humanities Seminars Program. We greatly owe him for his boundless energy, passion, and support of HSP in so many different ways. I will forever miss his friendship and support he extended to me and my family,” she says.
Taubeneck’s tireless efforts helped drive HSP annual enrollment from 460 in 2008 to more than 2,000 students in 2017. The courses offered also increased dramatically, from nine in 2008 to 28 this year, with Taubeneck himself recruiting many faculty members to teach in the program. He also championed the Friends of HSP endowment, which has now surpassed $1 million.
Fellow HSP student and former board member Phil Korn said Taubeneck was a diligent student who made significant contributions in class and a visionary board member, making many suggestions that improved the program.
“Ted’s presence was ubiquitous throughout the program,” Korn said. “He was known to many instructors, and to most students, and will be greatly missed by all.”
He was also a committed supporter of the UA Poetry Center, said Executive Director Tyler Meier. Taubeneck particularly enjoyed the work of W.S. Merwin, the author of our 50,000 book and Ted’s first-year friend when they were students at Princeton. His support extended to the Poetry Center’s education and outreach programs, including a collaboration between the Poetry Center and the True Concord vocal group, with new work based on poetry curated by the Poetry Center for a new emerging composers prize, partially funded by the Taubenecks.
“Ted left an incredible model for how to live a life. He was passionate about Tucson’s regional arts and culture, and he was committed to seeing organizations that he cared for thriving,” Meier said. “He had a profound belief in the life of the mind, and I think he cared deeply that a person committed to learning, no matter her age, was in a right relationship to the world. Above all, his affection for and commitment to Shirley seems to me a model for a marriage and how to share a life with another.”
Not only were Ted and Shirley married for 66 years, but they met when they were 12 years old, said their daughter, Ann Foody.
“His faith and his work through the church was a very import part of his life and his family was his lifelong passion,” she said. “The diversity in his interests was just amazing. His books and the articles and clippings that he saved really run the gamut across an incredible spectrum of interests.”
One clipping in particular summed up the way her father lived his life, Foody said: “Life’s journey is not to arrive safely at the grave in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting ‘Holy Cow, What a ride!’”
Taubeneck served in France and Germany with the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps and later worked with the Justice and Treasury Departments in Washington, D.C. As a business executive, he worked for a variety of multinational corporations while living in Pittsburgh, London, New York, and Philadelphia. He was an adjunct professor at Rutgers University for 10 years.
Taubeneck is survived by Shirley, his wife of 66 years, their nine children, 24 grandchildren, and 25 great-grandchildren (with three more on the way). A public celebration of this life will be held at the Most Holy Trinity Church in Tucson on Feb. 24 at 10 a.m. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to the Humanities Seminars Program, the UA’s Theatre Arts program, or True Concord.