W. Keith Bryant in Memoriam

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• Author: Cathleen D. Zick,Robin Douthitt
• Date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12541

COMMENTARY

W. Keith Bryant in Memoriam

Cathleen D. Zick

1

| Robin Douthitt

2

1

University of Utah, Family and Consumer Studies, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

2

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Correspondence

Cathleen D. Zick, University of Utah, Family and Consumer Studies, 225 South 1400 East, Rm 228, Salt Lake City, UT,

USA.

Email: zick@fcs.utah.edu

(September 22, 1934–September 13, 2022)

Cornell Professor Emeritus W. Keith Bryant died on September 13, 2022, 2 weeks shy of his

88th birthday. He was a major scholar in the field of family and consumer economics for over

40 years. “Keith was a pioneer in the study of how families make decisions on spendin g their

time and resources and much of our understanding of consumer behavior stems from his

research,”noted longtime Cornell colleague, Professor Alan Mathios.

Keith did not beginhis career as a family and consumereconomist, however. He earned a PhD

in agriculturaleconomics from Michigan State Universitywith a focus on rural and regional devel-

opment in 1963. He thenjoined the faculty of the Departmentsof Agricultural Economics and Sta-

tistics at the University of Minnesota. In 1966–1967, he took a leave ofabsence from that position to

become a staff economist to President Lyndon Johnson's National Advisory Commission on Rural

Poverty. As a resultof his experience on the Commissionstaff, he became doubtful that solutionsto

rural povertycould be found in rural and regionalindustrial development.Rather, he thought more

Received: 9 May 2023 Accepted: 30 May 2023

DOI: 10.1111/joca.12541

© 2023 American Council on Consumer Interests.

J Consum Aff. 2023;57:985–986. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joca 985