Applied Anthropologist and Professor Emerita of the University of Florida, Dr. Elizabeth Marie (“Liz”) Eddy died Friday, February 6, 2004, at her home in Gainesville. Liz was a fellow of the American Anthropology Association and Society of Applied Anthropology and was a member and past president of the Southern Anthropological Society. She was elected president of the Council on Anthropology and Education in 1972 and received the 1989 George and Louise Spindler Award from CAE for distinguished contributions to the field of anthropology.
She was born in Albany, N.Y., and was a 1947 graduate of Wellesley College. She received a doctoral degree in social psychology from Columbia University in 1961. She moved to Gainesville and the University of Florida in 1967 after establishing herself as a powerful researcher and writer on urban issues, race and applied anthropology. Liz became known for her work on integration in New York City Schools (Walk the White Line, Doubleday, 1967) as well as Rehabilitation For The Unwanted (with Julius Roth, 1967) and Becoming A Teacher: The Passage To Professional Status [1969]. She was interested in applied anthropology as a field of inquiry and its history, an interest that resulted in the definitive Applied Anthropology in America (Columbia U. Press, 1987) that she edited in collaboration with William Partridge.
She served as Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida from 1978-80. She always said that university service was just another applied opportunity of her career. At Florida, she established the Zora Neale Hurston Award for minority graduate students and was instrumental in establishing the Solon Kimball award for applied anthropology in the American Anthropological Association. Liz even saw a way to do applied anthropology after she was gone: she bequeathed a portion of her estate to establish an endowed chair in Applied Anthropology at UF, which will come into being in the next several years.
She asked that those who wish to remember her make a contribution to the Zora Neale Hurston Fund, University of Florida Foundation, and P.O. Box 14425, Gainesville, FL 32611.
The Elizabeth Eddy Graduate Fellowship was established in her honor, explore past recipients or instructions on how to apply here.