Professor Herman Sinaiko 1929-2011

from Sally Stamper's portfolio

With Herman's death, there is a profound sense of an era coming to an end in the Undergraduate College of the University of Chicago. He spent a lifetime at the University, as an undergraduate, then a graduate student in Philosophy, and staying on to teach in the College. He did a stint as dean of students and taught until a year or so before his death in October 2011. Herman served generations of students well, was pleased to teach the children of his former students, often in the same course their parents had taken with him, and took great pleasure in bringing their best critical thought and work out of first-year students, in particular, in whom he had supreme confidence as junior scholars.

Herman L. Sinaiko, College professor and Plato scholar, 1929-2011

Herman was a great friend. For two years, I was his teaching assistant and the writing instructor for his section of Human Being and Citizen, in the Humanities Core. I learned a great deal from him about teaching and cherish the notes I took during his lectures—especially those on the Apology, the Iliad, and the Nichomachean Ethics.

Every time I teach the Apology or the Iliad to my own students, I start as Herman did: reading aloud the opening line of the text and asking the students who is talking and what is being said.

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