Obituary of Robert Ross

ROBERT ROSS Robert Ross of Chico, beloved teacher, public servant and family man, died at home of cancer in the early hours of Friday, August 2, 2013. His last days were spent in the care and company of his family. A 39-year faculty member in the Department of Political Science at CSU Chico, Bob bettered the lives of hundreds of colleagues and countless students. From 1993 until 2002, he served as departmental chair, a position from which he sought out a new generation of faculty who serve there today. Bob continued teaching part-time until 2007, when he retired as professor emeritus. In 1973, Bob was elected to the Chico Unified School District Board of Trustees, beginning a 12-year career in public service distinguished by integrity, compassion and administrative savvy. Along with his wife, Sharon, Bob was instrumental in establishing the district's Open-Structured Classroom in the mid-1970s. Bob's academic specialty was quantitative analysis, a skill he adapted to the field of criminal justice as principal of the Social Science Survey Center. The company was often called upon in high-profile cases to conduct scientific polls of jury pools. However, Bob's most-read book casts a much wider light. Dushkin first published American National Government: Institutions, Policy and Participation, a survey text for undergraduates, in 1988. It was updated into four editions. Robert Samuel Ross was born in Canton, Ohio in 1940, the son of Mildred and Joyce Ross. His father, a bank examiner and veteran of the First World War, died when Bob was three. He was raised by his mother, grandmother, two aunts and a stepfather, Paul Schwalenberg. A lifelong athlete, Robert ran track and cross country at Miami University, Ohio, where he attended on a track scholarship. His passion for running continued throughout his life. While working a summer job as a hotel bellhop at Glacier National Park he met Sharon Hill of Minneapolis. The two were married in 1962. Much to the surprise of some fraternity brothers, Bob took a PhD in Political Science from the University of Colorado in 1968. Later that year, he and Sharon moved to Chico with two horses, a toy collie named Sheba and a daughter named Andrea. Two sons, Brian and Jason, followed shortly. A lover of the fine arts, Bob frequented the San Francisco Opera enough to justify buying his own tuxedo. The walls of his house could not contain his collection of paintings; in 2011, he and Sharon made a gift of 48 prints by the American master Winslow Homer to CSUC's Janet Turner Print Museum. His library, however, bore a more common touch. It overflowed with mass-market paperbacks of the detective genre, showing a particular weakness for Robert B. Parker's Spenser series. After retirement, Bob and Sharon divided their time between their Chico home and a ranch they purchased in Lassen County's scenic Fall River Valley. First intending to lease out the 60-acre farming operation, they ended up managing the spread themselves. Thus did the professor embark on a brief but furious second career as a hay farmer, moving pipe, battling gophers and moving pipe again, all with one eye on the barometer and the other on his fertilizer bill. Robert Ross leaves behind his wife, his sister, three children, three grandchildren and a cat, Squeak, all of whom miss him enormously. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to the Robert S. Ross Memorial Scholarship at CSUC. Contributions can be made by sending a check payable to the CSUC University Foundation--Robert S. Ross Memorial Scholarship to University Advancement, Attn: Scholarship Coordinator, 400 West 1st Street, Chico, CA 95929. Bob will be buried on Friday at a small graveside ceremony at Chico Cemetery.