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News & Events

The Retirement of Eldon Wegner

Prof. Eldon Wegner, who has served this department in many capacities for a long time, including chair of the department for several years, is retiring after the end of Spring Semester 2008. As a key figure in UHM sociology for so many years, he will never truly be out of the department, and he will continue to teach as an Emeritus Professor.

On May 3, 2008, a retirement party was held in his honor, and the following statement was presented by Emeritus Professor Kiyoshi Ikeda:

On the Retirement of Eldon Lowell Wegner

We are all gathered here to celebrate the upcoming retirement of Professor Eldon Lowell Wegner. As a scholar, Eldon’s life work has involved research, writing, presentations, mentoring and teaching in seminars and in classes, and service within the academic and larger community. Retirement means turning down requests in each area.

For Eldon, how one cuts commitments back in each sector will not be easy. Formal teaching will be somewhat reduced at the graduate and undergraduate level. Given shortages in faculty replacements, some work might continue.

In research, the service performed at the local, national, and cross-national levels will continue to challenge Eldon to write about and talk about health status, health risks, and about encouraging best practices in preventive and corrective health services in one form or another. Thus. So-called "retirement" will not mean getting away from life interests. However, we hope that Eldon will choose activities which will permit space and time for more leisurely pursuits, both, old and new.

A little on Eldon’s professional development. I have known Eldon from the 1960's onward. With a bachelor arts, cum laude from the University of Redlands, Eldon took up the Masters and Ph. D. at the University of Wisconsin from 1963 to 1967. Those were years in which Eldon was educated and trained by prominent mentors and colleagues to develop best practices in life-time interests with promising social science theory and methodology.

Key mentors and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Eldon’s contributions developed out of study and mentorship with faculty and colleagues at Madison, Wisconsin. In medical sociology, (the sociology of aging, health services research and evaluation), the more general grounding in social psychology and the social structure and the individual was critical. Professor David Mechanic, who later oversaw developments in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in New Jersey pressed Eldon to excel. At the same time, Professor William H. Sewell, the eminent social psychologist appointed to the behavioral science section of the national academy of sciences, enabled Eldon to examine processes and outcomes over the life cycle in education, employment, community involvement, and health. Dr. Kenneth Lutterman, who oversaw research and training programs at the National Institute of Mental Health in Rockville, Maryland supported Eldon to do local research and evaluation involving risk and disparities by race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and gender.

Review of Eldon’s life work demonstrates notable research on prevention and treatment in the health care delivery system within a life course framework. Specifically, long term care of the elderly, collection and analysis of a full range of health risks including cancer, mental health status involving economically and educationally less advantaged indigenous populations. Earlier work on profiling native hawaiian health status and risks in the E Ola Mau Native Hawaiian Health Needs Study have led to systematic research and search for best practices in community-based mental health treatment, diet changes to reduce risks of cancer, of diabetes, obesity, heart disease and other ailments. At a more general level, published works have emerged on racial and socioeconomic status differences which intersect in a range of health status and risks, the challenges facing the immigrant vietnamese in meeting health care needs in and around Hawai`i reflects such systematic work. Life-long work has been produced on the social psychology of health promotion, the long-term care information management and analysis project to develop a flow of supports and financing for the aged and their caregivers (involving alzheimer’s disease).

At the cross-national level, Eldon studied German to examine with German colleagues efforts at rehabilitation and community-based caregiving in Germany. With a Fulbright Scholarship, the coordination of medical and social services in Yugoslavia was examined.

Outstanding university, professional, and community service. The quality and quantity of university service beyond departmental committees is exceptional. These contributions rest on systematic work and development of work with undergraduate students in service learning projects within the health system and research with graduate students to document major health risks and disparities in prevention, treatment, and funding. Contributions also are impressive in service within the professions (sociology, specialties in sociology in life course, aging and gerontology), life-long ties in related professional bodies, in the Pacific Sociological Association and in the community at large.

We have been truly blessed by Eldon Lowell Wegner serving the department, the university, and the community in examining challenges in a wide range of life outcomes and applying a systematic sociological framework to both theorize and to develop policies and practices with colleagues such as professor Cullen Hayashida. That approach continues to be adopted in a wide range of environments and communities to the benefit of both providers and recipients.

We now look forward to Eldon Lowell Wegner becoming Emeritus Professor of Sociology with all its privileges (including Free parking on this campus) after June 30!