Peter H. Nash Sr.

Peter Nash died on January 19, 2011. He was Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Waterloo, Canada.

Nash took a B.A. degree at UCLA in 1942 before enlisting in the U.S. Army. He won two Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star during World War II, serving with the United States 160th Engineer Combat Battalion and the 12th Army Group Intelligence Service. After the war he took an MCP from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (1949), an M.P.A. from the Graduate School of Public Administration (1956), and a Ph.D. from Harvard University (1958).

As his career unfolded, Nash moved from Medford, Massachusetts, to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, to the University of Cincinnati, to the University of Rhode Island. In 1970, he became the founding dean of the new faculty of environmental studies at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. In each of these stages of his career he was involved in applied geography with special reference to planning and administration. As the years passed, he became ever more interested in the larger reaches of thought. At Waterloo the new faculty included four academic units: architecture, geography, man-environment studies, and urban and regional planning. Nash studied and published in each of these units.

Nash published 180 items including articles, reviews, and notes during an active career. These are listed as appendix B in Abstract Thoughts: Concrete Solutions: Essays in Honour of Peter Nash (1987. Eds. L. Guelke and R. Preston). Included in this collection of 15 essays by geographers whose lives were touched by Nash is his autobiographical essay, “The Making of a Humanist Geographer: a circuitous journey.” This chapter reveals study with Whittlesey at Harvard, participations at IGU Conferences, his enthusiasm for music and its place in the humanities, administrative moves encouraging ever more study of the environment, participation in the Delos conferences, and activity within the AAG. Some of his other interests are indicated by his membership of the board of directors of the Kitchener-Waterloo Philharmonic Choir, Kitchener Rotary International American Planning Association, and the American Geographical Society.

Peter H. Nash Sr. (Necrology). 2011. AAG Newsletter 46(4): 29.