Charles W. Slack ’50 *54

Experimental social psychologist, writer, and pastor, Charles died May 29, 2023, of heart and kidney failure after a yearlong struggle with prostate cancer at Hollywood Hospital in Nedlands, near his Scarborough Beach home in Western Australia. He was 94 years old.

At Princeton, Charles was influenced by Hadley Cantril’s work on the psychology of perception.

Charles met his first wife, Josephine Ives, at a state poetry contest in Trenton when they were high school students. Josephine won first place and her husband-to-be won second. A few years later, as an undergraduate, Charles won the Golden Tiger Award, the University’s top literary prize at the time. They were married in the summer of 1950.

In 1955, he moved to Harvard University, where he was an assistant professor of psychology. After his time at Harvard, the family moved to Alabama, where Charles was on the faculty of the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. The family moved from Tuscaloosa to Montclair, N.J., in 1961.

After they divorced in 1968, Charles met his second wife, Eileen Newton. She was a graduate student at Columbia Teachers College, where he was teaching. After a few years in New York, the couple moved to Birmingham, Ala. In 1976, Charles, who had long struggled with alcohol and drugs since his experimentation with LSD, became clean and sober. He remained so until the end of his life.

Also in 1976, Charles and Eileen moved to Melbourne, Australia, where he worked for the State of Victoria running a halfway house for boys who had been released from detention.

Charles and Eileen were divorced in 1992, and he took a job in Perth. It was in Western Australia that Charles met Susan Reid at his church. They were married in 1995.

Charles is survived by Susan, whom he adored and who cared for him diligently and lovingly through his final years of illness. He also is survived by three children from his first marriage: Frances Raeside, Roma Devanbu, and Gordy Slack; and five grandchildren.