The School of Social Work has received word that Art Emlen passed away on September 3, 2022. You may have known Art as the director of the Regional Research Institute but he also played a large role in the development of the current School of Social Work. Thank you to Nancy Koroloff and Eileen Brennan for helping us put together the following announcement.
In Memoriam: Arthur Emlen, 1927-2022
Arthur Cope Emlen, Jr. was born August 11, 1927 in Aubury, Pennsylvania to parents Arthur and Marie Emlen and spent his early years with his three sisters, Sally, Ellie, and Marie on a spacious family compound near Philadelphia. His first jobs were doing office work for the Provident Trust Company, trimming trees, and helping repair houses of the poor.
Art graduated from Germantown Friends School in the Class of ’45. Since the U.S. was engaged in World War II, Art was called up to do relief work with the American Friends Service Committee, transported horses to European farms, and helped arrange for repair of damaged homes. After the war, Art enrolled in UCLA, and got a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, which sparked his respect for empirical research. For the next two years Art directed an international group of volunteers who assisted with a land-reform project in El Salvador through the American Friends Service Committee, helping campesino families who earned new homes through working in fields. He returned to UCLA in 1956 and embarked on a two year Master of Social Work program and worked in rural child welfare placements, and jobs where he met Charlene Gilmour (Bitsy) whom he married before they moved to New Orleans.
Art earned a PhD in Social Welfare from Tulane University in 1964, and the Emlens relocated to Portland where Art accepted an Associate Professor position to teach research methods and child welfare practice in the School of Social Work at Portland State College. The first federal grant received by the School of Social Work came to Art in 1966 from the U.S. Children’s Bureau for his study of neighborhood family day care systems. In 1973, the Regional Research Institute for Human Services was established with Art as its founding director, which he directed until his retirement in 1989.
Art’s RRI research was groundbreaking in a number of areas: neighborhood family day care, permanency planning for children in foster care, the ways employed parents arranged to have their children cared for while they were at work, and family support investments. In 1987 PSU honored Art with the Branford Price Millar Award for his outstanding research on the relationship between work, family, and childcare. He also was recognized in 1987 for his “pioneering work in permanency planning…for all children who receive public child welfare services” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services Commemorative Award.
Art continued his scholarship after retirement, and received the RAPS Outstanding Retired Faculty Award in 1995 and 2019 for his continuing service and scholarship, including the 2010 publication of his influential book “Solving the Childcare and Flexibility Puzzle.”
Art passed away with family by his side on September 3, 2022. Art is survived by his wife, Charlene, and their daughter Lisa and her husband Robert Takahashi, parents of granddaughter, Abby, their son Andrew and his wife Audrey, parents of grandsons Riley and Conner, and their daughter-in-law Elana who was married to their son Matt Emlen (who died in 2019) parents of grandchildren Ariella, Estee, and Tali.
An obituary for Arthur Emlen has been published by The Oregonian at: https://obits.oregonlive.com/us/obituaries/oregon/name/arthur-emlen-obituary?id=36587328