Remembering Professor Emeritus Donald Latner Cohen
Professor Emeritus Donald Latner Cohen passed away on December 11, 2020, at the age of 96. After serving in the Army Air Corps as a teenager, he was honorably discharged and returned to New York after WWII to earn his bachelor's degree from City College, and a master's degree in social work from Columbia University.
According to his obituary,
His passion and calling in life was to help and uplift others, who needed assistance either because of poverty, ill health, disability, addiction and more. Don would say that this calling officially began with a summer spent outside of Buffalo, working as a counselor for children and teens who were afflicted with polio and other disabilities at Cradle Beach Camp. Together with his great empathy, outgoing personality, he brought his accordion, a handsome voice, and some powerful enthusiasm, enjoining all to sing along with him. The campers and their wonderful counselor were forever changed for the better.
Dr. Cohen was recruited to help establish the School of Social Welfare and teach at the newly expanded UAlbany campus. His obituary continued,
He loved being a professor, which was demonstrated in countless exciting classes, where students were always encouraged to not only listen to others but to also speak up and share their insights. All about town, wherever Don and his family would go, former students would often stop him, enthusiastically sharing their news about a new position secured in the field of social work and always extending their gratitude for the time spent in his classes. There was no one prouder of his students' success than their former professor.
Al Cardillo, one of Dr. Cohen’s former graduate students and a current SSW part-time lecturer, never lost contact with his mentor.
As a professor, he strove unceasingly to teach beyond the walls of the classroom and to stretch the horizons of learning and discovery to limitless possibility. With Dr. Don, learning was everywhere, every day, and in everything. In his pedagogy, in-class learning, texts and studies were to serve only as the starting point, and to be brought to fruition by channeling knowledge, learning and assignments into real world needs. To Dr. Don, ‘teaching’ needed to connect students to the purposes and realities of all that was in the community and in the broader world. He unequivocally regarded his students as ‘colleagues,’ in an outreach of respect that elevated each and every one in their work and in their mutual support of one another. His is the standard that inspires my own teaching at the university and elsewhere, and for which I am ever grateful.
Dr. Cohen was not just a part of the School of Social Welfare during his tenure. His impact has lasted through the colleagues he collaborated with, the students he mentored, and the many individuals whom he interacted with during his social work career.
If you would like to honor Professor Emeritus Cohen and his wife Beatrice, his partner of 67 years who also recently passed, contributions may be sent to: Congregation Beth Emeth (for the Soup Kitchen), 100 Academy Rd., Albany, NY, 12208 or to the School of Social Welfare Internships in Aging Project, The UAlbany Foundation, P.O. Box 761, Albany, NY, 12201. To leave a condolence message for the family, please visit levinememorialchapel.com.