In Memorium Seymour Sudman: August 9, 1928 – May 2, 2000

Abstract

Seymour Sudman, devoted husband, loving father, dedicated teacher, patient mentor, revered scholar, and an extraordinarily humble man, died Tuesday, May 2, in Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, of complications related to a stroke. Born in Chicago, Seymour received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Roosevelt University in 1949. After working in several positions as a statistician, he received a doctorate in business from the University of Chicago in 1962. He then directed sampling and senior studies at the National Opinion Research Center in Chicago until he joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1968. He was appointed the Walter H. Stellner Distinguished Professor of Marketing in 1985. He had planned to retire from teaching this spring. He is survived by his wife, Blanche; a son, Harold; two daughters, Emily Hindin and Carol Sudman; a sister, Annette Baich; and two grandchildren. Since 1968, Seymour had been a University of Illinois faculty member in marketing and sociology. He was also Deputy Director of the Survey Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois. He was internationally recognized as an outstanding survey research methodologist, whose writings are required reading for students of marketing, statistics, and sociology. Seymour Sudman was a pioneer in designing survey questionnaires, a semanticist with an eye for spotting a single word that could influence an entire survey's findings.