Death
April 19, 2011, Volume 57, No. 30	Print Issue

Dr. Teune, Political Science

Dr. Henry Teune, professor of political science, passed away April 12. He was 75 years old.

Dr. Teune’s 50-year tenure at Penn began in 1961 when he joined the faculty of the political science department. He was promoted to professor in 1972 and chaired the department from 1975-79. His research and teaching focused on technology, cross-national comparisons of cities, and the global and local dimensions of democratic values and practice.

In addition to his faculty appointment, Dr. Teune was the project director for the Democracy and Local Governance Project, a 30-nation research program surveying samples of local governments. He was also a principal investigator on the Universities as Sites of Citizenship, a global research program with the cooperation of the Council of Europe to assess the activities and programs of universities as they relate to democracy. From 1967-69, he served as vice-dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Active in University governance, Dr. Teune served on many Faculty Senate and University Council committees. He was the former chair of the Senate Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty, the Committee on Nominations and the Committee on Administration. He had been a board member of the University Club at Penn since 2003 and since 2005 had been the Club’s vice president. Dr. Teune acted as its interim president in 1994-95.  

Dr. Teune was a member of the editorial boards of Comparative Political Studies and the Journal of Theoretical Politics. He was chairman of the Screening Committee, Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (political science), president of the International Studies Association (1981-82), and until 1994 a member of the Executive Committee of the International Sociological Association and the chairman of its Statutes Revision Committee. He had also been president of the Research Committee on the “Politics of Local-Global Relations” of the International Political Science Association and the Research Committee on Conceptual and Terminological Analysis. He was vice president of the thematic group on the Sociology of Local-Global Relations and the Research Committee on Comparative Sociology of the International Sociological Association.

Dr. Teune held visiting academic appointments at Cornell University, the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies, and the Internation al University of Japan. A recipient of three Fulbright grants, he was also Research Exchange Scholar of the US National Academy of Science in Yugoslavia, and in 1993 a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Teune earned his BA from Central College (Iowa) in 1957, his MA from University of Illinois in 1958, his PhD from Indiana University in 1961 and his LLD from Central College in 1974.

Dr. Teune is survived by his wife, Kazumi; and his daughter, Elana.

A memorial service will be held in the fall.