Joseph Fradin, UB English Professor Emeritus, 80

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Joseph I. Fradin, Ph.D., of Buffalo, professor emeritus of English at the University at Buffalo, died of cancer on April 24. He was 80.

Fradin was a highly respected and well-loved professor and two-time chair of the UB Department of English, where he is remembered by colleagues as a "witty, kind, compassionate man with high ethical and performance standards."

"Joe loved to teach," says Mark Shechner, professor and chair of the department, who visited with Fradin just days before he died.

"He was an enormously sweet-tempered and gentle person. Students flocked to his classes. He turned out a generation of Victorian scholars," Shechner says. "They passed through his seminars and went on to successful careers in their profession. They thought the world of him, as did those of us who worked with him for 38 years. He was a good man."

Fradin, a scholar of the 19th century British and European novel, was the author of critical studies of Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens and British novelist, playwright and statesman Edward Bulwar-Lytton, among others.

He was born in 1925, the son of Julius and Minnie Fradin and grew up in Parksville, N.Y.

He received a bachelor's degree from Columbia University, interrupted by two years in the U.S. Naval Intelligence Service, during which time he graduated from the Navy School of Oriental Languages fluent in Japanese. He was honorably discharged as a lieutenant JG.

Fraden went on to complete his bachelor's degree and earn master's and doctoral degrees from Columbia. He taught there and at Cornell University before joining the UB faculty in 1960. He taught thousands of students, directed 24 doctoral dissertations and served on theses committees for many more, before retiring in 1998.

Artist Harvey Breverman, SUNY Distinguished Professor emeritus of art at UB, and a friend of Fradin's for 35 years, calls him "a man for whom all of us had great respect. We were grateful for his wisdom, wise counsel, civility and generosity. They just don't make them like Joe anymore.

Fradin wrote two exhibition essays about Breverman's work that Breverman calls "brilliantly insightful. Joe was able to write about what could be seen in the work…rather than about him -- an important distinction. Sometimes it was a provocation, but he made people think and consider."

Breverman included him in a 20-foot pastel of UB faculty members that now hangs in the atrium of the university's Center for the Arts.

Fradin is survived by his wife, Florence Gardner Fradin; two children, Devra Fradin of New York City, and Mark Fradin, M.D., of Chapel Hill, N.C.; grandchildren Danielle and Laura; a sister, Tiby Rosenberg of New York City, and several nieces and nephews.

Funeral services will be held April 26 at 1 p.m. in the Amherst Memorial Chapel, 281 Dodge Rd., Getzville. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the University at Buffalo Department of English, c/o The University at Buffalo Foundation, P.O. Box 900, Buffalo, N.Y. 14226-0900, or Hospice Buffalo, 225 Como Park Boulevard, Cheektowaga, N.Y. 14227-1480.