[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 136 (Thursday, October 26, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1956-E1957]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TRIBUTE TO THE LATE
                              LESLIE KISH

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LYNN N. RIVERS

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 26, 2000

  Ms. RIVERS. Mr. Speaker, today I pay tribute to the memory of Leslie 
Kish.

[[Page E1957]]

  Leslie Kish, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of 
Michigan and research scientist emeritus of the university's Institute 
for Social Research, died quietly on October 7, 2000. His death came 
after a long period of hospitalization, which he faced with 
characteristic energy and courage. Thus ended a long and productive 
life, marked by tremendous vitality, commitment to humanitarian values, 
and a bottom-less curiosity about the world in all its aspects. A few 
months before his death, Leslie's family, colleagues, former students 
and many friends had gathered to celebrated his 90th birthday and the 
creation of a university fund, in his honor, for the training of 
foreign students in population sampling.
  Kish was born in 1910 in Poprad, the part of the Austro-Hungarian 
Empire, now in Slovakia. In 1925 the family, parents and four children, 
migrated to the United States and settled in New York, but in less than 
a year Leslie's father died, suddenly and unexpectedly. The family 
decision to remain in the United States meant that the two eldest would 
have to find work and that their high school and college educations 
would have to be entirely through night school.
  In 1937 Leslie had less than one year of undergraduate college work 
to complete. Deeply concerned with the threat of a fascist sweep 
through Europe, however, he interrupted his studies and went to Spain 
as a volunteer in the International Brigade, to fight for the Spanish 
Loyalists. He returned to the United States in 1939 and graduated from 
the night City College of New York with a degree in mathematics (Phi 
Beta Kappa). He then moved to Washington, where he was first employed 
at the Bureau of the Census and then as a statistician at the 
Department of Agriculture. There he joined the group of social 
scientists who were creating a survey research facility within that 
department. Again, his career was interrupted by war; from 1942 to 1945 
he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a meteorologist. He rejoined 
his colleagues in the Department of Agriculture in 1945, and in 1947 
moved with several of them to the University of Michigan, where 
together they founded the Institute for Social Research. During his 
early years at Michigan, Kish combined full-time statistical work with 
the completion of an M.A. in mathematical statistics (1948) and a Ph.D. 
in sociology (1952).
  Throughout his long career at the university, Kish concentrated on 
the theory and practice of scientific sampling of populations. His 1965 
book, Survey Sampling, a classic still in wide use, is referred to by 
students and faculty as ``the bible.'' In 1948 he initiated a summer 
program for training foreign statisticians in population sampling, 
which has generated a large international body of loyal alumni in more 
than 100 countries.
  Kish's scholarly writing and innovative research in sampling 
continued undiminished after his formal retirement from the university 
in 1981. He was in great demand as an expert consultant throughout the 
world and in response traveled extensively and enthusiastically. Among 
the many honors and awards that came to him during his long career were 
designation as the Russel lecturer, the University of Michigan's 
highest mark of recognition for a faculty member; election to the 
presidency of the American Statistical Association, election as a 
fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Statistical 
Society of England. To these were added, in his retirement years, 
election as an Honorary Fellow of the International Statistical 
Institute and as an Honorary Member of the Hungarian Academy of 
Sciences. He also received an honorary doctorate from the University of 
Bologna on the occasion profits 900th anniversary.
  Dr. Kish is survived by Rhea, his loving wife of 53 years; his 
daughters, Carla and Andrea Kish; his son-in-Law, Jon Stephens; his 
granddaughter, Nora Leslie Kish Stephens; and his sister, Magda Bondy. 
At his request, his body was donated to the University's medical school 
and there will be no funeral service.