Chauncey Greene Olinger Jr.

1933 - 2021

OLINGER, Chauncey Greene, Jr., philosophy instructor, battleship Naval officer, Great Books advocate, editor, environmentalist, stockbroker and CFP, sculptor, oral historian, and president of numerous membership organizations said goodbye to life on June 14, 2021. At his death he was the recently retired President of the National Institute of Social Sciences, founder and Chairman of the Margaret Mead Monument Project, and founder and co-chairman of the University Seminar on the History of Columbia University. He held the degree of B.A. with Honors in Philosophy from the University of Virginia and a M.A. degree in philosophy from Columbia University. The son of Cora Blount Urquhart Olinger and Chauncey G. Olinger, he was born January 16, 1933. Along with vigorous participation in family, religious, academic, and voluntary organizational activities, he sought understanding, knowledge, and wisdom about life and the world. By the time he was 20, he had concluded that he wanted to avoid the toils of mindless accumulation, but rather, in a way, to "live by his wits," on an open, but relaxed, existential edge, confronting each new situation, problem, or joy with interest, curiosity, and intelligence. He sought to search out the myriad ways that humans open their minds and spirits to their fellow humans as well as toward the universe into which all are plunged at birth. He sought to know and understand life and the world philosophically, but also like Descartes, in a more practical sense, to "read the great book of the world." The son of a schoolteacher mother from old Virginian roots and a career naval-officer father from Missouri, he was early set on a path of omnivorous learning that evolved into a wide sense of curiosity about all aspects of the world. Indeed, he treasured the immense variety of life and the world precisely because of the opportunities they provided for learning. He often quoted Hamlet's great line, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Over a period of 65 years he was the president of many charitable and not-for-profit groups, including, the Columbia University Student Council, the Graduate Faculties Alumni of Columbia University, the Church Club of New York, the national Coalition to Stop SST Environmental Damage, and the National Institute of Social Sciences. For all the work that being president of an organization required, he came to cherish that role because of the opportunities it gave him to learn from members of the various organizations, who were accomplished in many ways. As an undergraduate at the University of Virginia he led a campaign that created an academic department to offer Great Books courses. At Columbia, he was the founder of the I. I. Rabi Memorial Room. He recorded oral history interviews of Stringfellow Barr, Courtney C. Brown, I. I. Rabi, Grayson L. Kirk, and Frank Tannenbaum. In his private life he promised himself to never marry until he found the right girlâ€"and he did. He is survived by his love of 50 years, Carla Dragan Olinger, her brother Greg, and by nephews Burges Urquhart IV, Lewis T. Urquhart, Whitmel H. Urquhart, nieces Cora B. Urquhart, and Pattie C. Urquhart, and all of their progeny, and Tango, a sun conure, known to all of his friends. A memorial service is planned at Columbia University.