Mar 18, 2010 - Claremont, Calif. -

Harvey Mudd College Trustee Ken Jonsson, who served the college for 37 years, died March 15, 2010, at the age of 79.  Jonsson was a dedicated member of the Board of Trustees since 1973, and an emeritus member since 2009.  He received an Alumni Association Lifetime Recognition Award for his years of service to the college when he retired in 2009.

Jonsson served with distinction on a number of Harvey Mudd College’s standing committees and chaired the Budget and Financial Planning and Audit Committees.  He and his wife Diana contributed significantly to the college’s endowment and scholarship programs, and established the Kenneth and Diana Jonsson Professorship of Mathematics endowment in 1996.   To further support faculty, he created the Jonsson Endowed Fund for Mathematics Department Travel, which provides a permanent source of annual funding for workshops, colloquia and educational travel. It will also help HMC broaden its national reach by supporting Clinic Program travel, professional development opportunities for faculty, bringing special guests to campus, and community outreach programs.

“Ken is remembered with deep affection and appreciation by all of us,” said William A. Mingst, chair of the board of trustees. “He provided support and wise counsel to all five of Harvey Mudd College’s presidents.”

“Ken loved the college and was really dedicated to it,” Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College, said of Jonsson. “He particularly loved the math department, and endowed the chair of that department.   When they were named the first recipient of the American Mathematical Society’s Award for an Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department, they told Ken that his endowment played a big role in creating such a stellar program.”

Jonsson was active in civic and philanthropic work in addition to serving on the board of trustees of HMC. He established the Jonsson Cancer center at UCLA, served as trustee of the UCLA Foundation and co-chaired the President’s Circle of the National Academy of Sciences.  Jonsson studied mechanical engineering at M.I.T. and worked for Texas Instruments after graduating in 1952. Following the success of the Jonsson Communications Corporation, a media company he founded in 1955, he established the Kenneth Jonsson Family Foundation to support medical research and higher education.

In lieu of flowers the family asks that donations be made to the Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation, http://www.cancer.ucla.edu.