John P. "Jack" Keating
June 24, 1937 - May 10, 2016
A child of Noe Valley, Jack Keating's talents were nurtured at St. Ignatius where he distinguished himself academically, as well as on the Wildcats baseball team. He pitched the teams to victory over several seasons, taking special pleasure in defeating arch rival Sacred Heart. When he wasn't pitching, Jack was a balletic First Baseman, coached in the position by the legendary Dolph Camilli. As a senior, Jack was given SI's General Excellence Award. That fall, he entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), passing up several college athletic scholarships and a farm team recruitment. For the next fourteen years Jack lived the life of a priest-in-formation, earning his BA, and MA from Gonzaga University in Spokane, a second Masters from Santa Clara University, and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology -- intellectual training that shaped his subsequent professorial life.
Returning to SI to teach, he dropped into Big Rec to see his former Coach. Jim Keating (no relation) told one of the varsity players to give Jack his cleats. Jack promptly hit the ball into the trees and struck out the entire team. After his Ordination, his First Mass, at St. Ignatius, was covered on the Sports pages of both the Chronicle and the Examiner: "Jack Keating's back in town, pitching a different kind of ball from the pulpit of St. Ignatius."
He left the Society in 1969 to marry his much-loved wife of 46 years, Dr. Pam Keating, of Palm Springs, who survives him. He earned an MS and a PhD in Social Psychology, and took a faculty position at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he remained for 22 years.
Professor Keating served on and chaired numerous UW committees across a range of faculty and student affairs, notably the Committee charged with connecting the ethnic and racial minority units on campus in a new Department of American Ethnic Studies.
The Search Committee he chaired to find the founding faculties for UW's new Branch campuses, however, had the most significant impact on his academic administrative career. Selecting a founding faculty with the academic credentials of existing UW faculty, as well as choosing colleagues who could work together to build two new institutions was a major undertaking. But Professor Keating's high standards as well as his history and engagement in University affairs enabled him to lead the Committee's successful work. That accomplishment resulted in his promotion to UW Dean of Branch Campuses and Vice-Provost.
Dean Keating's success in developing the two UW Branch Campuses, administratively and instructionally, in turn, resulted in his recruitment by the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, as its first Provost. UAF, Alaska's land-, sea-, and space-grant, flagship university had, in addition to its core liberal arts and sciences undergraduate and graduate programs, world-class international research Institutes in Arctic science. Linking these two different contexts of learning was the primary hope for the new Provost.
Provost Keating deftly brought the very different faculties together, enhancing existing programs in mathematics and the sciences, and collaborating on new interdisciplinary investments. After four years, his academic and budgetary prowess had stabilized the University economically and, had secured support for UAF's most fiscally challenging, but developmentally promising, Supercomputer. These achievements paved the way for his recruitment to take full charge of a university. He chose the newest state university in Wisconsin, UW Parkside on the shore of Lake Michigan.
All his previous interests and commitments were expanded and fulfilled in his Parkside Chancellorship. He doubled the university's size and secured support to sustain existing programs. He united faculty in developing courses and Certificate programs to meet regional employment needs while expanding institutional national and international development.
Parkside became a cultural center in addition to an educational one. And Chancellor Keating was the acknowledged centralizing force for bettering the lives of residents of South East Wisconsin.
Jack loved people. He studied them thoughtfully, led them imaginatively and effectively, spoke to them eloquently, and wrote about them sensitively for others' understanding. His studies in Philosophy, Theology and Psychology led to a life-long commitment to human development and social responsibility, which found expression in the intellectual engagement and organizational leadership of public universities.
Jack had remained in touch with his St. Ignatius Class '55. The class has annual Christmas lunches and reunions to which he was able to attend many including the 60th reunion last year.
In addition to Pam, Jack is survived by their son, Jake and his wife Wendy, of Seattle.
A Liturgy of Resurrection will be celebrated Saturday, June 25th at 10:30, at St. Ignatius, corner of Fulton and Parker. (Parking is available in the Koret Center (corner of Turk and Parker.)
Those unable to attend can honor Jack Keating's educational impact and influence with a contribution to the Chancellor jack Keating Scholarship for First-Generation College Goers: https://donate.uwp.edu/keating , a cause central to his family experience.
