C. Ernest Dawn *48

Ernest Dawn, professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois-Urbana, died Jan. 5, 2016, after a short illness at age 97.

Dawn earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee in 1941 and served in World War II and during the Korean War in Army intelligence. In 1948, he received a Ph.D. in oriental languages and literature from Princeton. He joined the University of Illinois as an instructor of history in 1949, rose to full professor in 1960, and became professor emeritus in 1989.

He traveled, studied, and worked extensively in the field of the modern Middle East. Dawn did research in Beirut, first as a Social Science Research Council fellow from 1948 to 1949, and then as a Fulbright-Hays fellow from 1966 to 1967. He was active in the Illinois Tehran Research Unit, and was its director in Tehran from 1972 to 1974.

Dawn was a fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and served on its faculty from 1981 to 1982. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Chicago in 1985.

Dawn was predeceased by his wife, Pansie. He is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.