Roy Eilers Licklider, 81, died on Thursday, November 10, 2022, after a yearlong battle with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). He leaves behind his beloved wife of 51 years, Patricia Minichino Licklider, his beloved daughter and son-in-law Virginia and Andrew Still, and his adored twin grandchildren. His much-loved sister Nan Rucker Kenton predeceased him in 2019. The son of Agnes Eilers Licklider Kenton and Woodburn Jennings Licklider, Roy was born and raised in western Colorado and central Arizona, instilling in him a deep and abiding love for the open desert. He attended the Orme School in Prescott, AZ, Boston University for his BA, and Yale University where he received his PhD in International Relations. After teaching at Tougaloo College in Jackson, MS for a year, he began his storied 50-year career at Rutgers University from which he retired as Professor Emeritus. He then taught briefly at Columbia University, where he was also associated with the Saltzman Institute. As a Westerner transplanted to the East, Roy famously wore Navajo turquoise belt buckles and watchbands as reminders of his Western identity.
After his first book The Private Nuclear Strategists (1971), Roy wrote about the strategic use of oil reserves in Political Power and the Arab Oil Weapon (1988). Roy then turned his attention to civil wars in Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End (1993). In 2006, he edited with Mia Bloom a collection of articles studying how countries move on after civil war, Living Together After Ethnic Killing, followed in 2014 by New Armies from Old: Merging Competing Military Forces after Civil Wars. Even though he often described his main interest as “guns and bombs,” he was recently beginning to study large migrations of peoples across continents and the political and social effects of such migrations. For over 20 years, Roy attended the graduate seminar of Charles Tilley at the New School as a professor, following Tilley when he moved to Columbia. Roy was known in this and other professional settings for asking, “So what? Why is your work significant? Why does it matter?”
Roy and Pat were avid travelers, especially with friends. They were planning to celebrate their golden anniversary with a river cruise to Normandy when ALS struck. We will sorely miss his warmth and his zest for good friends, good music, and good food and wine. His generosity was extraordinary: he always carried a few five dollar bills in his pocket for street solicitors with a good story. We are only now learning of his many acts of invisible kindness. He felt a great responsibility to share the gifts and privileges he had been given. And we will miss his great booming laugh.
No obituary can do justice to Roy. He was an incredibly special man of a very rare breed. We miss him more than words can say.
Following cremation, a service will be held at Riverside Memorial Chapel on Thursday, November 17, at 2:00pm Eastern. This service will be streamed live on Zoom at https://www.legacycelebrated.com/roy-licklider/. For a year afterwards, a video of the service will be available at the same website. A memorial celebration of Roy’s life will be planned in the new year. In lieu of flowers, donations in Roy’s name may be made to the International Rescue Committee (https://www.rescue.org), the Food Bank of New York City (https://www.foodbanknyc.org), or the American Indian College Fund (https://collegefund.org).
Partager l'avis de décès
v.1.9.5