Stephen Sanford Weidenborner ’56

Steve Weidenborner died of prostate cancer on Mar. 9, 2001, at his home in Montclair, N.J. An English major, Steve was in the NROTC program and a member of Cloister Inn. He roomed with Gordon Hammes during our senior year.

Following graduation, Steve was a lieutenant in the Navy and then taught at several New York area colleges. He earned his PhD in English literature from NYU in 1969, and coauthored three college textbooks. He was a faculty member for more than three decades at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, serving as chair of his department for 14 years. He was an innovative educator who had a brilliant witty mind and a compassionate crusader's heart. Steve's concern for social justice was reflected in his commitment to finding effective means of teaching remedial English to disadvantaged urban students and in his support of efforts to secure a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal, now on death row for a murder some think he did not commit.

Steve is survived by his wife, Moira Maynard Weidenborner; his three sons, Jeffrey, James, and William; a brother, Clarke Benham, a sister, Suzanne Neilson, and his former wife, Mary Hoover Weidenborner. The class offers its sympathy to them and others who mourn his death.

The Class of 1956