Frances & Floyd Horowitz

The Horowitz Fund for B’nei Mitzvah Tutoring & Music

Frances & Floyd Horowitz

Floyd R. Horowitz (1930-2014) and Frances Degen Horowitz (1932-2021) played major roles in the Jewish community, at KU, and in Lawrence. Both, but especially Frances, were a national and international presence. They had met as youths in Long Beach, L.I., NY.

Floyd received a BA from Adelphi University and earned an MFA at Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop and a PhD in English at Iowa. He came to KU in 1961, taught in the English Department and chaired both the English Department and the Computer science Department. He served as president of the LJCC and headed the Lawrence and state ACLU. In 1991 he joined Hunter University, where he retired in 1996.

Frances Degen Horowitz graduated from Antioch College, then taught elementary school before earning her PhD from Iowa in 1959.  When the Horowitzes moved to Lawrence in 1961, Frances joined the Domestic Science Department. Her research on early child development established her as a world renowned scholar and she transformed her department into the Department of Human Development and Family Life. From chair of Human Development she became an associate dean and then served as Vice Chancellor of Research and Graduate studies from 1978 to 1991, leaving KU to become President of the CUNY Graduate Center until 2005.

For 30 years, the Horowitz home at 505 Ohio hosted spirited Friday night sabbath dinners before the family attended services. Their table included a circle of regulars enhanced weekly by newcomers, Jewish visitors to Lawrence, Israelis, Horowitz students, and anyone who could use a good meal, engaging company and more Jewish knowledge. Floyd was the chef, and  led the repartee and puns. And more puns, exchanged with sons Jason and Benjamin. The Horowitzes invited the entire Jewish community and others to their home on the second day of Rosh Hashanah and hosted Jewish visitors to KU. For decades Frances led a Saturday afternoon study group at 505 Ohio. Frances also initiated the adult women b’nai miztvot class and ceremony, which both resulted in her own bat mitzvah and produced a new generation of Torah readers at the Center. At the university and LJCC, she empowered women.

Frances, as a pioneering women academic and as a world-class scholar and administrator stood out as a model for integrating Judaism with other aspects of her life. She was engaged in life around her, both Jewish and the larger world. In addressing annually the graduate hooding ceremony in the spring, Frances would always provide a precept from Perkei Avot—the book of ethics—bringing Jewish learning and ethics to the occasion.