Calvin William Sharpe

Please join the CWRU Law School community to celebrate the life of Professor Calvin W. Sharpe, Friday, April 4, 2025, at 5 p.m. in the CWRU Law Moot Court Room. If you cannot attend in person, the event will be webcast. Register or obtain the webcast link here: https://case.edu/law/our-school/events-lectures/memorial-professor-calvin-w-sharpe

Please donate to the annual Dr. Maya Angelou & Professor Calvin Sharpe Interdisciplinary Lecture Endowment on Peaceful Conflict in Calvin's honor, here: https://case.edu/law/give by designating the lecture as the target for your contribution.

Calvin William Sharpe February 22, 1945-May 9, 2024

Calvin William Sharpe, with an "e," ("CW") was born February 22, 1945, in Hickory, North Carolina, the third child of Mildred and Reverend Ralph Sharpe.

Calvin was raised in a loving and disciplined home. His father was a United Methodist minister, pastor of Hartzell Memorial United Methodist Church. After losing his mother, Mildred, a homemaker, in 1960, Calvin became the devoted son of his second mother, Cleo Augusta Hill Sharpe, an elementary school teacher.

At first, a quiet and always smart kid, Calvin developed into a youth with unmatched charisma, a wonderful personality, and a sense of humor that made peers gravitate toward him. Popular amongst the girls and boys, Calvin forged the kind of lifelong bonds he formed throughout his life with many of his childhood pals. His friend Doris Forney Frazier said Calvin was, "always a gentleman, easy to talk to, very fun-loving, and had quite a few friends. All the girls loved him because he was so personable and had a smooth, captivating personality." Calvin was an engaged young man. He was a member of the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. He played the piano and sang in the choir at Hartzell Memorial UMC, where he was a regular attendee and member of the youth fellowship. Calvin brought his signature brand of enthusiasm and competitive spirit to all his endeavors. According to his friend James Kimball, he was captain of the basketball team. He graduated valedictorian of his high school class at Ridgeview High School, Hickory, NC in 1963.

Calvin attended Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, graduating in 1967 with a B.A. in Philosophy and Religion. But Calvin claimed that "he didn't grow up" until he moved to New York City after college and lived in a one-room basement apartment in the same building where his big brother, Ralph, a New York stockbroker, resided. In NYC, Calvin got a chance to experience the hustle and bustle of the big city and engage in the real world, which was a fire in the civil rights, labor, and philosophical movement of the time.

Intent on a life as a clergyman, Calvin moved to Chicago to attend the master's program in theology at Chicago Theological Seminary. Although reared in biblical principles and discipline, Calvin was an open-minded young man who was willing to consider alternative dogma and radical thought. And he was willing to adhere to unpopular viewpoints and approaches that he thought could encourage the development of personhood and peace. Moved perhaps by his desire to wield tools outside the pulpit to make an impact on the social, political and economic status quo, and bold enough to vary from his expected course, Calvin left seminary and began law school at Northwestern School of Law, where he was a member of the Law Review and published a student articled dealing with his chosen area of the law.

Calvin engaged law school like he did all endeavors, treating academic and career advancement as an art and science, identifying the pathways and records of the most successful in his fields of interest and then applying the discipline and focus necessary to build his skill, expertise, leadership experience and strong networks in communities of interest. Calvin brought a willingness and rigor to his efforts that allowed him to forge his own path and build a renowned career as a lawyer, law professor, and dispute resolution expert, and to live a life of good relationships and friends.

Calvin clerked for U.S. District Judge Hubert L. Will (Northern District, Illinois). After the clerkship, Calvin went on to work for four years as a trial attorney with the National Labor Relations Board on formative cases in modern labor law; work that prepared him for his later work as a teaching and scholar in the fields of evidence, labor law, employment law, and dispute resolution. Calvin began his law teaching career at the University of Virginia. There, he so impressed his UVA colleague Professor Ernest Gellhorn, who was soon named Dean at Case Western Reserve Law School in Cleveland, Ohio ("CWRU"), that Gellhorn recruited Calvin to join the CWRU faculty. Calvin began at CWRU Law in 1984 and taught there until his retirement in 2013. At CWRU, Calvin taught Evidence, Trial Tactics, Alternative Dispute Resolution, and courses in labor and employment law and published in all four areas.

Calvin was impactful in the life of the law school, a respected and sought-after instructor; his students appreciated his enthusiasm, encouraging and precise teaching style, and support. He was a mentor and cheerleader to colleagues and encouraged the hiring of diverse faculty. Calvin's service to the law school included founding the law school Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Conflict and Dispute Resolution (CISCDR, pronounced like "sister"), and serving as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Calvin also established an annual lecture series that continues today at the law school, the Dr. Maya Angelou and Professor Calvin Sharpe Distinguished Lecture on Peaceful Conflict, held every year on or around Maya Angelou's birthday, April 4th.

Calvin was sought out as a visiting law professor during his tenure as a law professor, including at the University of Minnesota, George Washington University, Arizona State, Seton Hall, DePaul, Chicago-Kent, and Rutgers-Newark, where he served as the Justice William J. Brannan Distinguished Visiting Professor. He taught and spoke internationally. In 1998, Calvin was part of a select delegation from the National Academy of Arbitrators invited to South Africa to help that country develop its labor law system, and where he became an important and enduring resource in that regard to that nation.

Calvin was well published, penning over 40 publications and establishing himself as a leading authority in evidence, employment law, labor arbitration, dispute resolution, and labor law. Among his publications are a leading book on labor law, Understanding Labor Law, and a pioneering casebook on international labor law, International Labor Law: Cases and Materials on Workers' Rights In The Global Economy (2008). Calvin's co-authors and readership effuse about his exactitude and collegiality and note the scholarly brilliance of his work. Prof Dennis Nolan, former President of the National Academy of Arbitrators, described Calvin's article on court review of statutory arbitration to be "the most thorough and insightful in the field."

Throughout his career, Calvin engaged deeply with and served in leadership roles in relevant subject matter organizations related to his fields. He chaired the Evidence Section of the Association of American Law Schools. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the National Academy of Arbitrators - the premier labor arbitration organization - serving for a time as the organization's Vice President. So well respected was he that he was selected to write a chapter in the revised guidebook for labor management dispute resolution, The Common Law of the Workplace, Calvin also served on the United States Executive Board of the International Society of Labor and Social Security Law as well as on the Board of Directors, JUSTPEACE Center for Mediation and Conflict Transformation.

Having established himself as a law professor and scholar, Calvin continued to expand his knowledge base and his expertise by becoming a part-time labor arbitrator and mediator, work that furthered his insights and skills in the art of dispute resolution. As with all things, "he became a master of this art and one of the nation's most sought-after and trusted arbitrators, being selected to handle disputes in major industries, the public sector, and the sports industry-including the National Football League and the National Basketball Association. Ever disciplined and keen on completion, Calvin finished his Master of Divinity degree in 1996. Due to his resounding excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service, Calvin was named to chaired professorships at CWRU, including the John Deaver Drinko Baker Hostetler chair in 1999 and to the Galen J Roush chaired professorship in 2009, becoming emeritus when he retired in 2013.

Calvin was considered by his colleagues as "a person of extraordinary character-gentle, caring, empathetic, selfless, and a person of the highest integrity," and so was he considered at home with friends and family. Calvin engaged his life relationships like he did his work and career. He maintained a perennial upbeat countenance and was ever with a kind word, good advice, and a hearty laugh. He had a friendly memory; he always remembered the details of that thing you told him last time-about something you were doing or how your family members were - and he would ask about these things, with accuracy, and about those people, by name. Calvin would wish your child he had never met a Happy Birthday, on the right day, every year. Inevitably, he would engage you in enthusiastic discussion about what you were up to right now, and he would provide sage advice, often suggestions that changed and improved your life. Everyone who met Calvin generates the same pleasant expression and breathy enthusiasm when his name is mentioned that he exhibited with them. Everybody enjoyed the personal and loving relationship that they encountered with Calvin.

Calvin had good taste. Married for over thirty years to his wife Janice Jones, he enjoyed life with a partner who was also enthusiastic about excellence, and who joined him in celebrating with family and with friends in the communities they cultivated in the world. Calvin was proud of his children, active and interested in the growth of his kids Kabral, Stevie, Melanie and Nikki; his nieces and nephews- Moneer Masih-Tehrani, Kamante and Jerell Brown, Jamal and Cory Hipps, Keith, Anthony, Paul, Ryan, Rashon, and Chloe Sharpe, and his grandchildren, Isaiah and Zoe Sharpe.

Calvin took his responsibilities to commune with others seriously. He brought his whole self to family and friend gatherings and interactions. When he asked how or what you were doing, he was really interested. He wielded his friendships to work for a good company, discussing aligned principles, challenging ideas, plans of action, theoretical bases, and catching up on the developments of life.

Calvin loved music, jazz in particular. He annually communed with family and friends at the Sedona Jazz festival. He reliably contributed to the love, talk, teaching, and music of Thanksgivings in North Carolina with his extended Angelou-Johnson family, ever prepared to convene a barbershop quartet or to make music a cappella, or around a piano. He loved to sing. He loved to harmonize with others in song. Calvin was too, a founding member of the Cleveland Jazz Appreciation Group, which he and friends (Curtis English, Dr. Evan Morris, Dr. James DeBerry, Larry Simpson and others) convened monthly to listen to "straight ahead jazz," and engage in scholarly presentation and analysis of the musicians, their music, and period of record.

He was a lifelong sportsman and purveyor of healthy living, who could be found exercising regularly at his local gym. He was an eager attendee and spectator at his kids' academic and sporting events, and he watched professional football and basketball with zest. He was a sucker for sweets. Master of staking out a post for lively and long conversation near a dessert table, Calvin would remind you that he only indulged in small slivers of confectionery, albeit repetitively.

Calvin was cool. The epitome of a "cool cat. "He looked cool, kind of like a 60s jazz musician, or a John Shaft. Stevie's friend Morgan would always come to the house, look for Cavlin, and ask, "Where's Denzel?" He did look like Denzel. He stood cool. He walked cool. He was dapper and suave, self-assured and polite. And he was so much fun.

Although Calvin's health challenges forced him to retire in 2013 and to change his lifestyle of active engagement in discussion and music, he made the associated transitions with patience and grace. He lived with a strength of mind and sense of humor that few can exercise as well when challenged. Regardless of the limitations of his body and his voice, he maintained his masterful ability to connect with and love others and to promote peace until his final transition.

Calvin passed May 5th, 2024, in Scottsdale, AZ.

He was predeceased by his father,r Reverend Ralph Sharpe, and his mother's Mildred and Cleo Sharpe, his brothers, Paul and Ralph, and his sisters, Muriel and Phyllis. He is survived by his wife, Jan, and his children, Kabral Sharpe, Stevie Sharpe Jones, Melanie Adrienne Jones, and Nikki S, his sisters, Permilla Hipps and Stephanie Murrill, and his grandchildren, Isaiah and Zoe, and an inordinate number of colleagues and friends.

We will miss him all of us.

Buried at Paradise Memorial Gardens

9300 E Shea Blvd, Scottsdale, AZ 85260

Open 8-4:30 M-F; 9-9 Saturday

(480) 860-2300