Harold Wilensky

Harold L. Wilensky, professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, died at his Berkeley, Calif., home on Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011 after a long battle with prostate cancer. He was 88. Born in New Rochelle, New York, on March 3, 1923, Wilensky was reared in a liberal family, and that orientation remained with him. His undergraduate years (1942 and 1945-47) were spent at Antioch College, where he worked in and around the labor movement and the Democratic Party. He served as Midwest field director for the Voters Research Institute, then as research assistant at the Detroit headquarters of the United Auto Workers, then as assistant to the chief lobbyist at the Ohio C.I.O. Council, and later for three years at the University of Chicago Union Leadership Project. His academic career included 28 years in the sociology departments at the University of Michigan and UC Berkeley, and in the political science department at UC Berkeley from 1982 until his retirement in 1991. Harold Wilensky is survived by his partner of 32 years, Mary Roth Sharman; his sons, Stephen David Wilensky of Glencoe, Calif.; Michael Alan Wilensky of Piedmont, Calif.; Daniel Lewis Wilensky of Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey; and four granddaughters.