HOWARD BERNARD KAPLAN

KAPLAN
HOWARD BERNARD KAPLAN, died in Houston, Texas, on October 9, 2011, from complications following a valiant struggle against sepsis. He is survived by his loving wife of 41 years, Diane, by the children he adored, his son Samuel Kaplan and his wife Jenny Strimel and his daughter Rachel Kaplan and her husband Jeremy Pienik, and by his precious grandsons, Calvin and Cormac Kaplan. He is also survived by his sister-in-law and her husband, Cindy and Dan Kaplan, and by his nieces and nephews, Bobby, Lori, and Sherry Samuels, Hyla Kaplan Rosenberg and her husband David, and Cara and Adam Kaplan. He was predeceased by his parents, Samuel and Esther Kaplan and by his sister Gloria Samuels.
Howard spent his childhood and young adulthood in New York City, where he was born in 1932, graduated from Erasmus High School (Brooklyn), and received his bachelor's (1953), master's (1954), and Ph.D. (1958) degrees from New York University, where he also served as an assistant professor. In 1958, he moved to Houston as a Russell Sage Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine, where he taught for 30 years, moving through the professorial ranks to become a full professor from 1970 to 1988, and continuing to serve on the voluntary faculty until his death. At various times during that period (1958-1988) he also headed the Sociological Research Section of the Houston State Psychiatric Institute and served as a visiting professor at Rice University and the University of Houston.
At the time of his death Howard was a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University, the Mary Thomas Marshall Professor of Liberal Arts, a Regents' Professor, the recipient of the Association of Former Students Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award in Research, and the Director of the Laboratory of the Studies of Social Deviance of the Department of Sociology. He was internationally known and regarded as an expert in the areas of deviance, social psychology, and medical sociology. He received the American Sociological Association's Leo G. Reeder Award for a career of distinguished contributions to medical sociology, the highest award that can be given in this area. This award honored his more than 40 years during which his research made an indelible impact on the field of medical sociology, as well as deviant behavior and social psychology.

Howard's early work and collaborations contributed substantially toward establishing the relevance of the sociological perspective to research in the area of mental illness. His work on self-attitudes, particularly self-derogation, created a new and exciting line of inquiry into the nature of the self. This sparked an enormous body of research that helped explain suicide, alcohol and drug use and abuse and psychological distress. To study the relationship between early self attitudes and stressors and later deviant/non-deviant behaviors, Dr. Kaplan initiated a longitudinal study of seventh grade students in half the junior high schools in HISD in 1971, whom he periodically surveyed and interviewed for the next 37 years and whose children he followed from 1994 - 2008. Results from this longitudinal study have been and continue to be analyzed and written about by Dr. Kaplan and many of his current and former graduate students. With the publication of his book, Self Attitudes and Deviant Behavior, his theory of deviant behavior became widely recognized as both a theoretical and empirical breakthrough. Howard's over 200 publications included 11 books, including Deviant Behavior in Defense of Self, Social Psychology of Self-Referent Behavior, and Social Deviance: Testing a General Theory. Until his death he was the general editor of a sociology handbook series of more than 20 volumes, and prior to his death he was developing a new handbook series entitled Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research.
Howard was an extraordinary teacher and mentor to the many graduate students he inspired during his 23 year tenure at Texas A&M University. He was also recognized for his service to Texas A&M, to the discipline of sociology and to social science policy. He served on numerous national and international scientific committees, including the White House Conference on Health in 1965 and as chair of the Drug Abuse Epidemiology and Prevention Research Review Committee of the National Institute on Drug Abuse from 1985 to 1990. He was also the editor of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior from 1979 to 1981. He was given the award of Regent's Professor in 2002, in recognition of his exemplary contributions to Texas A&M and to the people of Texas. He was well known for generous contributions of time to serving as chair of the Distinguished Professors and several Faculty Senate committees, playing a significant role on the Visions 2020 Advisory Council and on myriad other committees that contributed to the intellectual vigor of the university.
Howard was also a loving husband and a doting and dedicated father who coached his son's soccer team and notwithstanding his professional dedication, always made it home in time for dinner with his family and never missed a sporting event, piano recital, dance performance, or other activity involving his children. He loved comedy and laughter and was well known for his infectious and wry sense of humor. He had a love of the movies from a young age and an encyclopedic knowledge of movie, sports, and other trivia. He was a die-hard fan of Houston sports teams (with the Brooklyn Dodgers no longer an option) and when he joined the faculty at Texas A&M, quickly developed a love of Aggie tradition that came all the more easy in view of an inclination to root against the University of Texas that long preceded his decision to join the faculty. He will be sorely missed by the family and friends he loved so much.

Howard's wife and children want to express their appreciation to the doctors, nurses, and other staff at Methodist Medical Critical Care Unit for the excellent care and compassion they provided Howard during the final six weeks of his life.

Funeral services took on Monday, October 10, 2011 in the Friedman-Levit Sanctuary at Congregation Beth Yeshurun, 4525 Beechnut, Houston Texas 77096. Interment followed at Emanu El Memorial Park. In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made to the Howard B. Kaplan Graduate Fellowship in Sociology at Texas A&M University, Department of Sociology, Academic Building, College Station, Texas 77843-4351; to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, Tennessee 38105; or to the Dr. Marnie Rose Foundation, 5090 Richmond Ave., PMB-291, Houston, Texas 77056.