ISDT Director Gary Chapman suffers fatal heart attack

15 Dec 2010

UPDATE: Memorial service to be held on Saturday, January 8.

Gary Chapman, Director of the International School on Digital Transformation and long-time faculty member at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, died Tuesday, December 14.

A memorial service for Gary will be held on Saturday, January 8, 2011, at Central Presbyterian Church, 200 E. 8th St., Austin.

Chapman was a Senior Lecturer at the LBJ School, Associate Director of the Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute at UT Austin and an internationally recognized expert on Internet policy, telecommunications and technology policy. He died of an apparent heart attack while traveling in Guatemala, according to his family.

His role with the UT Austin|Portugal program included the founding of the International School on Digital Transformation, an intensive summer program on the democratic transformation of society through digital media.

"Gary was a natural leader and a quiet, persuasive visionary - a model of the power of humility and one of the warmest, most giving instructors and a wonderful research partner," said CoLab Digital Media Director Sharon Strover. "Saying he will be missed doesn't begin to express the ache and loss. He was instrumental in our summer Institute for Digital Transformation, reaching many, many teachers, scholars, activitsts from around the world, and inspiring all of us to use new tools to improve society and create a just and more democratic world. Our sympathies go out to Carol, his wife."

For more information on Gary's life and work please see:

LBJ School of Public Affairs Long-Time Faculty Member and Reknowned Internet Policy Expert, Gary Chapman, Suffers Fatal Heart Attack

To post personal remembrances, please visit: http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/news/2010/gary-chapman

A personal message from Sharon Strover

Thanks everyone for conveying your condolences on Gary's death.  We are all saddened that he died, and greatly in his debt.  He was an inspiring and quietly passionate human  being, and  he will be missed by everyone at Austin and certainly by our program.

If you would like to share your condolences with his wife and other friends, many of us have posted on Gary's Facebook wall at http://www.facebook.com/gary21cp.   The LBJ School also has a memorial site where many of his colleagues are sharing their memories and sympathies at  http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/news/2010/gary-chapman  -  you can read the many tributes to his work and humanity.  I know Carol is taking comfort in reading the many acknowledgments of the impact Gary has had on people's lives.

With sadness, Sharon