Kenneth Hoffman

Kenneth Hoffman, of Amherst MA, died suddenly on October 17 2024. Ken was born in Pontiac MI on March 2, 1941, to Stan and Mary Hoffman. When he was four the family moved to Canton, China, where his parents worked as medical missionaries until their emergency evacuation in 1949 ahead of the Communist victory in the civil war. The family later moved to the Navajo Reservation, in Tuba City, Arizona, where Ken developed an abiding love of the desert and a lifelong passion for learning to identify plants and knowing their scientific names. He graduated from Wasatch Academy in Utah (there was no high school on the Reservation at that time) and received bachelor's degrees in math and physics from Wooster College in Ohio, where he sang in the choir, learned to heat soup in the glass globe of a ceiling lamp, and met his future wife Jan. He went on to graduate studies in mathematics at Harvard, receiving a Master of Arts (AM) in 1962 and continuing advanced studies until 1967. From 1965-66 and 1967-70 he taught math at Talladega College in Alabama, where he and others founded an integrated kindergarten so that their children would not have to attend a segregated institution. He and his family moved to Amherst MA in 1970, where he was a founding member of the faculty at Hampshire College and taught for 43 years, retiring in 2014. Ken fully embodied Hampshire's principle of "non satis scire": he helped (occasionally mathphobic) students not just to understand the subject, but to come to enjoy and appreciate its beauty. He was part of an NSF-funded project designing an approach to teaching calculus as "A language and a tool for exploring the whole fabric of science," resulting in the book Calculus In Context. He also loved taking students on trips on the Connecticut River and hikes throughout the Pioneer Valley, teaching Natural History through the senses and experience. In addition to his regular faculty duties, Ken spent several summers teaching high school students in the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics program – combining both advanced studies in the field and sneaking in hikes and outdoor experiences for the students. On moving to Amherst Ken and his family purchased a 12-acre property, motivated in part by a desire to live in partnership with a piece of land. He took great pleasure over the years in raising chickens, barn cats, horses, dogs, and goats, and in learning to coexist with the foxes, groundhogs, rabbits, bears, and chipmunks so eager to share in the bounty of the farm. He always enjoyed finding new sources of bulk fertilizer, such as a truckload of goat manure delivered in the heat of summer, or an annual delivery of dozens of bags of leaves from the town. He experienced frequent bouts of "tree lust" and planted more than 200 trees on the property over a fifty-year period, carefully recording the provenance of each. Ken was active in Mount Toby Friends (Quakers) meeting and New England Yearly Meeting, holding a variety of positions over the years. He often bicycled the eight miles from home to meeting, even in winter. He commented that meeting for worship was one of the few places he found a similar quality of silence to that of the Arizona desert. Music was a source of great pleasure to Ken. He sang in choirs at Wasatch Academy and Wooster College, and with the Da Camera Singers in Amherst. In recent years he enjoyed expanding his musical horizons, becoming an avid supporter of groups and organizations including The Crossing and Gotham Early Music Scene, particularly their Open Gates project. He is survived by daughter Mika, son-in-law Matt Wall, and deeply beloved grandsons Duncan and Izzy; daughter Jennie and son-in-law Daniel Froehlich; sisters Jeannette Faber and Kathy Hoffman; brother-in-law Wayne Snover and his wife Jan Tebbel; nieces and nephews Yanji Lama (Chad Hurley), Sherrie Sliski (Tom), Amber Luton (Mitch Palmer), John Luton (Jen), Andy Snover (Katie), Melinda Snover (Jon Tyson), Joe Luther, and John Luther; and his beloved trees. He was preceded in death by wife Jan and sister-in-law Betsy Luther. A joint memorial meeting for Ken and Jan under the care of Mount Toby Friends Meeting will be held at 2:00pm on January 18, 2025, at the Hadley Methodist Church. It will be possible to attend via Zoom; please contact Mika or Jennie for the link.