Netter Center Senior Fellow, Lee Benson, dies at 90

The University is mourning the loss of an influential leader in civic engagement.

Lee Benson, the late professor emeritus of History and Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, died last month at Springfield Hospital in Delaware County at age 90.

Benson leaves behind an ideology that universities should use service as a way to learn about the world.

Throughout his long relationship with Penn — beginning in 1964 — Benson remained dedicated to his teaching.

Since 1985, Benson has co-taught an urban studies seminar with Ira Harkavy, founding director and associate vice president of the Netter Center. The course name rings a bell with Benson’s scholarly work for nearly half a century at Penn: “Urban University Community Relations.” He also co-founded the Netter Center’s university-assisted community school program in 1985.

Harkavy first met Benson as a Penn undergraduate student in 1968. Later, as a graduate student, he worked with the late professor on “how a university can make important contributions both to knowledge and society,” he said. “He was an inspiring teacher.”

Harkavy and Benson began a long term partnership in 1980 and collaborated on every step in the development of the Office of Community-Oriented Policy Studies, which expanded into the Netter Center in 2007.

“In all of the ideas that led up to the Center, [Benson] always played a central role,” Harkavy said.

Benson always encouraged undergraduates to be both producers and consumers of knowledge, Harkavy said.

Many of Benson’s former students around the world have integrated his ideas into their work.

But his most lasting mark will be on the University.

“His ideas are grounded enough in the University that they will persist, continue to grow and flourish,” said Joann Weeks, associate director of the Netter Center.

As a Penn professor, Benson’s steadfast views and broad knowledge — on the role of history in bridging the past to the present and future — attracted many students and faculty to his work.

“Lee was always convinced in the power of a good idea,” said Weeks, who was one of Benson’s graduate students in the 1970s. “Even if it might take years, generations to see its moment.”

Benson, who had taught at Wayne State and Columbia universities prior to coming to Penn, was also a prolific author of books and articles on history, education and civic engagement.

Benson, Harkavy and other Netter Center faculty co-authored many books, including Dewey’s Dream — a study about philosopher John Dewey and the role of universities in educational reform.

Always a voracious scholar, who would “read more in a day than I will this year,” Benson routinely generated new ideas for how the Netter Center could expand, Weeks said.

“We will miss the calls at eight at night or two in the morning, with something he just thought of,” she added. “There was always more to be done with Lee.”

Benson died of complications from a fall on February 10, and he is survived by his daughter, Sally.

The community will hold a memorial service for the late professor on May 1 in Houston Hall.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.