The author of the article is Margaret M. Clifford, College of Education,
University of Iowa.

T. Anne Cleary was born to Frank C. and Janet E. Sweeny Cleary on December
12, 1935, in Shanghai, China, while her father, a manager for the Warner-
Lambert Company, was on an international assignment. Anne spent most of her
childhood and adolescence in Etobicoke, a suburb of Toronto, where she attended
Our Lady of Sorrows Elementary School and St. Joseph's High School
(now known as Michael Power-St. Joseph's.) In 1958 she obtained her BS degree
in psychology at Marquette University; two years later, she obtained her
MA in developmental psychology at the University of Minnesota. From 1960
to 1962 Anne was a research assistant at the Educational Testing
Service (ETS). In 1964 under the mentorship of Ledyard R. Tucker, Anne
received her PhD with a major in psychometrics and a minor in statistics
at the University of Illinois.

Immediately after completing her doctoral studies, Anne returmed to
ETS as an associcate research psychologist. Two years later, she joined
the faculty in educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin
at Madison; she was promoted from assistant to associate professor in 1969.
In 1971, Anne moved to the College Board where she held various administrative
and consulting positions. In 1979 she accepted the position of director
of the Evaluation and Examination Service and professor of educational
measurement and statistics at the University of Iowa. During the past four
years, Anne served sequentially as acting director of admissions, acting
associate vice president of academic afairs, and most recently associate
vice president of academic affairs.

During her career Anne served as president of two divisions of the Americal
Psychological Association (APA); the Division of Measurement and Evaluation
and the Division of Educational Psychology. Anne also served as vice president
of the Division of Measurement and Research Methodology within AERA. She held
several other offices in both AERA and APA, served as reviewer or member of the
editorial board for numerous journals, and served on dozens of committes for
professional organizations and the two universities in which she held faculty
appointments.

I had the privilege of knowing Anne as an instructor and faculty adviser for
2 years, a colleague for 12 years, and a friend and scholar for 25 years.
Anne's contributions in each of these roles were unique and invaluable. Anne's
most widely known professional contributions were her works on test bias.
Beginning with her dissertation and throughout her career, she searched
for evidence of measurement bias--item bias, gender bias, and cultural
bias. Anne also searched for explanations for and solutions to this bias
because she viewed unbiased measurement as a general strategy that could
help resolve professional and personal problems as well as scientific and
public policy issues. Anne's preoccupation with the detection, assessment,
and reduction of measurement bias was consistent with her philosophy
of research. She was one of those rare psychologists who believed
that the work of a theorist was not complete until practical implications
of theory and research were effectively implemented. She took as much
delight in demonstrating the practical value of measurement to
practitioners who assumed that testing was "the problem" as she took in
delivering a presentation to psychometricians who assumed that measurement
was " the solution."

While Amme is less well known for her coauthored works on Alzheimer's
disease, gifted education, and second-language testing programs, it was
through these research endeavors that she instilled in many practitioners
an amazing enthusiasm for psychological research. For Anne, applied
reseearch was an enjoyable social activity that provided a means of
bridging disciplines, of demonstrating the practical value of theory,
and of increasing the utility of psychology.

As a teacher, Anne was an accomplisned developer of human resources.
She prompted all of her students to achieve far beyond the limits they
set for themselves. She made the impossible to be just a "titch" beyond
one's present reach. She took a special interest in students who were
noticeably anxious about taking their first measurement course. She had a
knack for using a single correct response from such students as evidence
with which to convince them that they were on their way to mastering the
theory and principles of measurement. She would effectively credit
students with ideas they hadn't realized were theirs. Anne could
persuade students that an academic blunder as obvious as the Goodyear
blimp was nothing more than an error in measurement that required
the prompt generation of more valid data. Anne also was deeply committed
to the social, psychological, and financial support of foreign students,
several of whom were her advisees. Although her administrative
responsibilities often limited her to the teaching of one or two
courses per year, Anne was constantly devising creative ways to instruct
and to further the intellectual development of everyone with whom she
interacted. Among her most effective instructional strategies was that
of acknowledging what SHE had learned from each individual with whom
she interacted. Teaching and learning were in truth reciprocal processes
for Anne.

As a friend, Anne revealed an amazing breadth and depth of interests.
Her friends included not only colleagues and students, but children,
retirees, staff members, neighbors, and individuals she had met in airports,
coffee shops, and aerobics classes. She held philosophical discussions
with 7-year-olds preparing for theatrical tryouts; she guided the
discussions of girl scouts considering career options; she persuaded
adult neighbors who hesitantly broached the topic of taking
a community college course to pursue a master's degree; and she
counseled retirees with health-care needs and investment problems.
Anne took children to their first concert, Broadway performance, or ballet.
She interviewed the neighborhood youngsters before finalizing their
adoptions of her kittens, and she held reunions and birthday parties for
cats and caretakers. She created employment opportunities for children
and adolescents and set wage scales that whould have made most college
students envious. And yearly, on December 25, Anne hosted Christmas
dinner with a visit from a gift-laden Santa for several dozen foreign
students and their children.

On November 1, 1991, a distressed Chinese graduate student who had been
denied a coveted dissertation award shot the awardee, three members of
the Physics Department faculty who composed the award committee, and Anne,
who had been asked to handle his award-related grievance. He then shot the
receptionist who, at his request, had summoned Anne, and finally he took
his own life. On November 2, shortly after her three brothers, Frank,
Michael, and Paul, arrived at her bedside, T. Anne Cleary died.

For Anne the purpose of life was to give life; to instruct, to inspire,
to encourage, to develop, to resolve, to befriend, and to acknowledge
the achievements of others, without regard for age, gender, race, status,
culture, setting, or circumstances. Thus, it is not surprising that the news
of Anne's death evoked tears from children and adults of every walk of life,
race, and culture in this country and abroad. Nor is it surprising that
minutes after Anne's death, her brothers sought the address of the
assailant's family so that they could express what they believed Anne
would have expressed had she survided her assailant's attack.
In their letter to this family they wrote, "We all know that the
only family that feels more grief than ours at this time is your family,
and we want you to know that we are with you in this sorrow. Together, we
all can gain strength and support from this. Anne would want it that way."

For those of us who knew Anne, her death represented not only the loss
of a great academician and friend, but the loss of a life that was the
source of inspiriation and renewed life for many. It now behooves those
of us who valued her professional contributions and benefited from her
quality of life to perpetuate her philosophy of life--to give generously
wherever or whenever human need or want is found. She would encourage
us to generate and disseminate scientific knowledge enthusiastically
and responsibly, to demonstrate the practical value of that knowledge,
to perceive teaching not so much as a duty but as a privilege, and
to challenge, motivate, and model for those who seek our advice.

In her memory, her brothers have established the T. Anne Cleary
Psychological Research Scholarship. it will include a financial
stipend and will be made available annually to one foreign and one
U.S. advanced doctoral student in the Division of Psychological
and Quantitative Foundations at the University of Iowa, Anne's
academic home for the past 12 years.

Contributor: Indy Girl (48899858) • [email protected]