Washington Co., AR - Obituaries - Malcolm Shepherd Knowles

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        Date: 14 Feb 2002
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Malcolm Shepherd Knowles, 84, of Fayetteville died Nov. 27, 1997, at
Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville. He was born Aug. 24,
1913, in Livingston, Mont., to Albert Dixon and Marion Straton Knowles. He
grew up in Montana and Florida. He was characterized as the father of
modern adult education and devised the first broad-based adult-education
program for the central YMCA in Chicago, Ill. He was also the first
executive director of the Adult Education Association of the United States
and became a professor of adult education at Boston University and then a
distinguished professor of adult education at North Carolina State
University. He received a B.A. degree in history from Harvard University,
and an M.A. degree and Ph.D. in adult education from the University of
Chicago. He was a Navy veteran. He was a faculty member and mentor for
Fielding Institute of Santa Barbara, Calif., and retired from North
Carolina State in 1979. He moved to Fayetteville in 1991 and served as
adjunct professor of vocational and adult education at the University of
Arkansas. He developed a theory of adult learning, which he named
andragogy, the adult equivalent to pedagogy. He is the author of 18 books
and more than 200 articles on the theory and practice of adult education.
His books have been used in virtually every adult-education program in the
world. They include Informal Adult Education; The Modern Practice of Adult
Education; The Adult Learner; A Neglected Species; Andragogy in Action; and
A History of the Adult Education Movement in the U.S. His autobiography,
The Making of an Adult Educator, was published in 1989. He was the
recipient of numerous distinguished-career awards, including the American
Association for Training and Development and the Adult Education
Association of the USA. He was also awarded nine honorary doctoral degrees.
His theories were taught in industry, governmental agencies, religious
institutions, educational institutions and voluntary agencies in North and
South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Oceana.
Survivors include his wife, Hulda Fornell Knowles of Fayetteville; one son,
Eric Stuart Knowles of Fayetteville; one daughter, Barbara Elizabeth Hartl
of Orange, Calif.; one sister, Margaret Knowles Sterling of Black Mountain,
N.C.; five grandchildren.
Memorial services will be at 2 p.m. Dec. 14 at the Unitarian-Universalist
Fellowship in Fayetteville.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Malcolm S. Knowles Fund for
Adult Education, University of Arkansas Foundation, 325 Administration
Building, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 72701.

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