Longtime UNM community member Richard E. Greenleaf died Nov. 8, 2011 after a three-year battle with Parkinson’s disease, and he was commemorated in a ceremony Friday in the Alumni Memorial Chapel. About 30 people came to pay their respects.
He taught Latin American History at UNM, created a scholarship program and donated almost $1.2 million to the University, according to a UNM Today press release.
Greenleaf earned an undergraduate and two graduate degrees from UNM while studying under Frances V. Scholes, the professor for whom Scholes Hall is named. Greenleaf eventually taught a few courses in the History Department after his official retirement from Tulane in 1998. He wrote 11 books and co-authored or contributed to 17 others, published almost four dozen articles, primarily about Spanish colonialism, and was a frequent contributor to the New Mexico Historical Review.
Director of the Latin American and Iberian Institute Susan Tiano said Greenleaf’s contribution to the University and Latin American history was groundbreaking.
“He shifted established paradigms,” Tiano said. “He’s opened up critically important points of scholarly inquiry — the field will never be the same as it was since he’s impacted it so deeply.”
Greenleaf won numerous awards, including the Academy of American Franciscan History’s Serra Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Colonial Latin American History, and the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities Award.
“His life illuminates the highest standards of what a scholarly legacy can mean to the academic world,” Tiano said. “This is because his contributions have been so consistently exceptional and because they’ve been in so many diverse areas.”
Greenleaf was born May 6, 1930, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and taught at numerous institutions, including Tulane University, where he served as the History Department chair for 20 years.
He consistently donated to UNM, and started the Greenleaf Visiting Library Scholar Program, which allows graduate students to visit UNM for up to ten weeks to use the University’s research and library facilities.
Stanley Hordes, adjunct research professor at the Latin American and Iberian Institute, said Greenleaf’s contributions to the University extended beyond pure academics.
“We all are so appreciative for all he did for us,” Hordes said. “I take comfort in my belief that he will live on, not only through his outstanding works of scholarship, but also in the memories of the countless students, colleagues and friends whose lives he so profoundly touched.”
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