In Memoriam: Alvin Rudisill, 89

Alvin Rudisill, associate professor of religion and a longtime USC chaplain who built an enduring connection between the university and its neighbors, died on Feb. 21. He was 89.

Rudisill died at San Gabriel Valley Medical Center in San Gabriel, California, from pneumonia.

An ordained Lutheran, Rudisill joined USC as campus pastor in 1962 before being named university chaplain in 1969. He was a counselor to four USC presidents, and his role overseeing community outreach and programs in the 1980s and 1990s reshaped USC’s relationship with its surrounding community.

He also served as associate professor of medicine at Keck School of Medicine of USC and as a senior fellow with USC’s Center for Multiethnic and Transnational Studies. Although he stepped down from his post in 1995 for a brief sabbatical, he returned to teaching at USC a year later and was a mainstay on campus until his retirement in 2011.

When then-USC President James Zumberge asked him to oversee community relations at the university in the mid-1980s, Rudisill quickly developed three main goals: building trust with the community, creating a diverse staff and developing patience.

“If we were serious about a partnership, we had to really listen to the community and establish some rapport with them,” Rudisill said in a 1994 USC News story.

Developing beneficial partnerships

Rudisill spearheaded a conversation between USC and hundreds of stakeholders in the community to discuss neighborhood concerns. That initiative revealed a major need for new community-building infrastructure to help develop beneficial partnerships.

Rudisill and his team created the United Neighborhood Council, a coalition of businesses, community groups, residents and church officials in the surrounding community. The council established a simple but profound goal of improving the lives of people working or living near USC’s University Park Campus.

He also helped oversee efforts to collaborate with local schools, including USC Dornsife’s Joint Educational Project; USC’s Neighborhood Academic Initiative, a seven-year enrichment program designed to prepare underprivileged students from South and East Los Angeles for admission to college; and other partnerships designed to further strengthen the community. Other major endeavors included programs intended to encourage economic development and efforts to help the university’s neighbors recover and rebuild following the 1992 L.A. riots.

Academic interests

Rudisill’s primary field of scholarship was church history, but he also developed expertise in medical ethics. He drew on his knowledge of concerns surrounding human experimentation and fetal, neonatal and child bioethics while serving on several medical review boards at USC.

Throughout his career, he also explored issues involving peace, multiethnic and transnational relationships, and the role of institutions and communities in inner cities.

More information on Rudisill’s work at USC is available in a 2005 interview as part of the Living History Project at the USC Emeriti Center.

Theological background

A native of New Jersey, Rudisill graduated from Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and held master’s degrees from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania. He served as pastor of Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Leonia, New Jersey.

He was a Fulbright Scholar at Heidelberg University in Germany and completed his doctor of philosophy at Drew University in New Jersey. He also held an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in L.A.

He was the former grand president of Phi Sigma Kappa and a member of the Vesper Society and the Rotary Club of Los Angeles.

Rudisill first married Shirley Erickson. In 1977, he wed his second wife, Nancy Jane Western, to whom he remained married until she died in 2001. He is survived by his companion, Janice Hsia; his daughter, Suzanne; his son, Alan; five grandchildren; one great-granddaughter; five stepchildren; and two step-grandchildren.

Donations in his memory can be made to: USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative, c/o Janice Hsia, USC University Relations, 3551 Trousdale Parkway, ADM 260, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0018.