STORRS, CT — A memorial service to celebrate the life of Julius Elias, an emeritus professor of philosophy and former acting vice president for academic affairs at the University of Connecticut, will take place on Saturday, June 21, at 10 am in the UConn Foundation board room.
The memorial will focus on the life of Elias, who joined the University in 1974 as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He died Feb. 25 at age 82.
Elias served as dean of CLAS from 1974 until 1988 when he became acting vice president for academic affairs. He served in that position for two years before returning to the faculty as a professor. He retired in 1992.
Elias was born in London. In the years after World War II, he was chief of the voluntary agencies liaison division of the International Refugee Organization, where he helped Jewish orphans and other victims of the Holocaust relocate to Israel.
He came to the United States and studied philosophy at Columbia University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1955, a master’s degree in 1958, and a Ph.D. in 1963. He then worked at City College of New York in 1960, where he became a professor in 1972.
He taught courses in the philosophy of literature, aesthetics and ethics, and offered a popular opera seminar in the School of Fine Arts. He also published scholarly articles, did operatic libretto translation for Columbia Records and wrote a book, Plato’s Defense of Poetry. He also was an editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas for 12 years.
After he retired, Elias, who lived in Storrs, continued to teach opera at UConn and at the University of Hartford, and he took groups to New York, Europe and Australia to study opera.
Elias was predeceased by his wife, Wilma. He is survived by a son, Anthony; his daughter-in-law, Ellen; three grandchildren; a brother and a sister; and his longtime friend and colleague, Patricia Cremins.
The memorial service will be followed by a reception at the Foundation from 11 a.m. to noon. Contributions in memory of Elias can be made to the Annie and Wilma Elias Music Scholarship Fund at the University of Connecticut Foundation.
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