April 30, 2002

Contact: Todd Cohen, University Relations, (785) 864-8858.N

Donald Baer, 'intellectual leader' of KU human development department, dies

LAWRENCE -- Donald M. Baer, the Roy A. Roberts distinguished professor of human development and family life and of psychology at the University of Kansas, died Monday, April 29, at his home in Lawrence. Baer, 70, joined the KU faculty in 1965 and had planned to retire in June.

Baer was the "intellectual leader" of the Department of Human Development and Family Life and an important contributor to the Bureau of Child Research, now the Schiefelbusch Life Span Institute, said Edward K. Morris, professor and chair of human development and family life. With the Life Span Institute, Baer was a senior scientist who contributed actively in writing funded grants for research in communication, early childhood education, retardation and chronic aberrant behavior.

"Don will be remembered in the department for his wit and intellectual brilliance, his advocacy of high standards of experimental proof, his incisive and logical analysis in conceptual issues, his deep and abiding concern for creating and disseminating effective behavioral interventions, and his generosity and goodwill toward his students and colleagues," said Morris.

Baer's research interests included the use of preschool classroom settings for the modification of problem behavior in young children; program design for the extensive modification of deviant behavior in children; environmental control of language development; motor and verbal imitation; behavioral analyses of retardation; stimulus control; and generalization of the effects of behavior modification.

About 100 human-development colleagues and former students from across the United States and as far away as Japan and Norway gathered in Lawrence on April 13 for a conference in Baer's honor. His former students organized the conference, which focused on Baer's pioneering influence in the developmental psychology and behavior analysis field. The creation of the Donald M. Baer faculty award also was announced at the conference.

"Don was a wonderful mentor to generations of students. I am grateful that we were able to share our gratitude with him just two weeks before his untimely death," said Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and one of 1,000 graduate students who took Baer's infamous experimental child study course.

Baer is survived by his wife, Elsie Pinkston, professor of social work at the University of Chicago, and by three daughters, Ruth Baer of Lexington, Ky., Miriam Baer of Durham, N.C., and Deborah Baer of Franklin, Wis. Funeral arrangements are pending.