Andrew Peter Debicki, Lawrence

Debicki

Services for Andrew Peter Debicki, 70, Lawrence, will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Lawrence Catholic Center in Lawrence. Burial will be in Mount Calvary Cemetery in Lawrence.

Mr. Debicki died Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005, at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

He was born June 28, 1934, in Warsaw, Poland, the son of Roman and Jadwiga Dunin Debicki. He was raised in Cuba. He received his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees at Yale University.

Mr. Debicki taught at Trinity College in Connecticut and Grinnell College in Iowa. He came to Kansas University in 1968 as a professor of Spanish and Portuguese. He was a co-director for Kansas University’s Center for Humanistic Studies and was acting chairman of the department of Spanish and Portuguese. He directed the Hall Center of the Humanities from 1989 to 1993, when he was named dean of the Graduate School. He served as vice chancellor for research, graduate studies and public service from 1994 to 1996 and was dean of the Graduate School and international programs from 1996 until he retired in 2000.

He wrote more than 10 books on Latin American and Spanish poetry of the 20th century.

He received American Council of Learned Societies, Fulbright, National Endowment of the Humanities and two Guggenheim fellowships. He was also a fellow of the National Humanities Center twice and of the Bellagio Center. He received the KU Award for Teaching Excellence and in 1984 was given the Balfour Jeffrey Research Award.

He was a member of KUAC Advisory Board, Chancellor’s Club, Watkins Society and Kansas University and St. Lawrence Catholic Center.

He married Mary Jo Tidmarsh in 1959. She died in 1975. He married Mary Elizabeth Conway Gwin on May, 16, 1987, in Lawrence. She survives, of the home.

Other survivors include two daughters, Mary Beth Debicki, Whitewater, and Margaret Cooney, South Pasadena, Calif.; two stepdaughters, Melissa Pedron, Elizabethtown, Ky., and Betsy Burrus, Nashville, Tenn.; two stepsons, Michael Gwin, Jackson, Miss., and Christopher Gwin, Atlanta.; a brother, John P. Debicki, Chicago, Ill.; and nine stepgrandchildren.

Academic community mourns KU scholar of Spanish poetry (01-22-05)

The family will receive friends after a 7 p.m. rosary today until 8:30 p.m. at Warren-McElwain Mortuary.

The family suggests memorials to the KU Endowment Association for the St. Lawrence Catholic Center or Andrew P. and Mary Elizabeth Debicki Graduate Fellowship, sent in care of the mortuary.