J. Michael Dunn, founding dean of IU Luddy School, dead at 79
H-T Report
The Herald Times
J. Michael Dunn, the founding dean emeritus of what is now the Indiana University Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, died this week. He was 79.
Dunn spent more than half a century on the IU faculty. His scholarship focused on logic and the foundations of mathematics, as well as the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, and the formal and foundational aspects of computer science. In 2010, he was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest and most prestigious academic societies in the country, according to a news release from IU.
During his career, Dunn served as a visiting professor at several universities around the world, including at The Australian National University from 1975 to 1976. That's where he met IU President Michael McRobbie, who was a graduate student at the time.
"I was truly fortunate to be mentored in my early days as a researcher by some truly great scholars and researchers, and Mike was at the very top of that list," McRobbie said in the release. "I first met him when I was a graduate student at ANU in 1975 and had the great privilege of working closely with him throughout the year he was there. We stayed regularly in touch thereafter."
That relationship helped put McRobbie on the path to lead IU. When he first visited Bloomington in 1985, McRobbie stayed with Dunn and his wife, Sally. Dunn helped with McRobbie's selection as IU's first vice president for information technology in 1996.
"In a very real sense, I would not have been here were it not for Mike," McRobbie said in the release. "He was a truly extraordinary individual and an exceptional faculty member, administrator and innovator who was deeply committed to academic excellence in all that he did."
Born in Fort Wayne, Dunn earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Oberlin College in 1963 and a Ph.D. in logic from the University of Pittsburgh three years later. He arrived at IU in 1969, was named a full professor in 1976 and was named the Oscar Ewing Professor of Philosophy in 1989. Dunn was also a founding member of the cognitive science program at IU.
He was twice the chair of the department of philosophy at IU, and he was the first executive associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He also chaired 17 doctoral dissertations in philosophy, cognitive science, computer science and mathematics during his academic career.
He was involved with the strategic planning for the establishment of an informatics program in 1998, and in 2000, then-IU President Myles Brand appointed him the founding dean of the then-School of Informatics, the first new school at IU in a quarter century. He retired in 2007.
Dunn was the author or co-author of six books and more than 100 articles. His work has been recognized by Fulbright, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Science Foundation. He also was the president of the board of HealthLINC, a nonprofit health information exchange in southern Indiana.
Dunn was selected as a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies in 1984. He was selected to Who's Who in America in 1985.
Additionally, Dunn served as president of the Society for Exact Philosophy and on the executive committee of the Association for Symbolic Logic. He was also editor of the Journal of Symbolic Logic and chief editor of the Journal of Philosophical Logic.