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Sandra Schwartz Tangri ’62

Sandra Schwartz Tangri ’62, June 11, 2003, in her home in Bethesda, Maryland, from lung cancer. Sandy attended Los Angeles City College and Reed, and earned a BA in psychology with honors from University of California, Berkeley, in 1960. At Reed, Sandy said, she learned to learn, and how to become her own teacher. After graduation, she went to India to do research. There she met and married Shanti Tangri; they had one son, and later divorced. Sandy received an MA in psychology from Wayne State University in 1964 and a PhD in social psychology from the University of Michigan in 1969. In the early ’70s, Sandy moved to Washington, D.C., to start a research office at the Commission on Civil Rights, and later moved to the Urban Institute before joining the psychology department at Howard University where she taught for 20 years. She retired as an emeritus professor in 2001. She was a Fulbright fellow, a fellow of the American Psychological Association, and served on the council of the Society for the Psychology of Women, which awarded her a top honor. She was also a member of the Association for Women in Psychology. A pioneer in research and studies of women and their careers, she wrote more than 40 abstracts, articles, and books, and lectured internationally. Her research extended to working women in other countries, and in varying phases of life, and was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the MacArthur Foundation, the National Institute of Education, and the Labor Department. In 2000 she received the Carolyn Wood Sherif Award for contributions to the field of psychology of women from Division 35 of the American Psychological Association. Her role as teacher and mentor provided her with a great deal of pride, and she encouraged her students to become better people—not just better scholars—and to challenge the system when necessary. She enjoyed swimming, dancing, painting, and sculpture. In retirement her quilt depicting her father’s family’s emigration from Russia was locally exhibited. Her social and political activism extended to support her neighborhood community, and the lesbian community, and she founded the Passages Conference, which celebrated multiculturalism and diversity. She is survived by her son; and her partner, Nan Bowman.

Appeared in Reed magazine: November 2003

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