The department marks the passing of Joseph Zemmer, professor emeritus and former chair, who died Jan. 28, 2000. Zemmer joined the faculty in 1950 and retired in 1987. He traveled extensively during his 37 years on the faculty, holding a Fulbright in India in 1963-64, and positions as visiting professor at Yale University in 1956-57 and in Giessen, Germany, in 1971.
An influential researcher in the field of near-rings, Zemmer was a tireless teacher who supervised 11 doctoral students. His students, in turn, produced five students, giving him a total of 16 mathematical descendants. After his retirement, Zemmer kept an office in the department and continued to teach occasional courses for several years. He regularly visited the department until shortly before his death.
Zemmer served as department chair for two three-year terms, 1967-70 and 1973-76. Late in his first term as chair an incident occurred that some alumni from that period may remember. After the Kent State shootings in May 1970, then-Chancellor John Schwada installed surveillance equipment in the chair's office to monitor demonstrators through the window.
Zemmer balked, telling Schwada that he couldn't run the department with "all these people and equipment in my office" and insisted that they be removed. For his stand, Zemmer received a letter of appreciation from 12 graduate assistants for showing a fine sense of moral responsibility regarding your duty as our supervisor and ... as a scholar and a teacher.
Zemmer's late wife, Joan, who died in 1997, also was a mathematician. They met as graduate students at the University of Wisconsin and were married in summer 1950, shortly before moving to Columbia. They had three children, Joel, who has a 1977 degree from MU, Rachel and Judy, and two grandchildren.
Zemmer was born Feb. 23, 1922, in Biloxi, Miss. He received bachelor's and master's degrees from Tulane University and a PhD in 1950 from the University of Wisconsin under the direction of Richard Bruck.