Richard \u201cDick\u201d Dempsey, professor emeritus of curriculum and instruction and educational leadership, died on June 12, at the Regional Hospice and Home Care Center of Danbury, Conn. He was 83 years old.<\/p>\n
A professor of educational leadership for more than 20 years until he retired at age 59, Dempsey was a nationally respected educator and author, and was widely respected by faculty members and students in the Neag School of Education. He also had a long history of working closely with Connecticut schools, and was known as a practitioner\u2019s professor.<\/p>\n
Dempsey maintained life-long relationships with many of his students. He was an advisor over the years to some of the top UConn alumni in the field, including Dave Larson, former executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, and Richard Schwab, dean of the Neag School of Education.<\/p>\n
He will be remembered for his mentoring and kindness, and for his sense of humor and intellect.<\/p>\n
Prior to joining UConn, Dempsey worked as a teacher and principal in Michigan and Ohio, then as assistant superintendent of schools in Darien, Conn. He was active with the National Association of Secondary Principals.<\/p>\n
Dempsey was born April 29, 1932 in Detroit, Mich., the son of Nina (Willis) and Oscar Dempsey. He attended school in Detroit and went on to earn his bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees from Eastern Michigan University and later his Ph.D. from Michigan State University.<\/p>\n
Dempsey enjoyed watching sports, especially UConn women\u2019s basketball and his grandchildren\u2019s games, as well as traveling, reading, and spending time with family and friends. Most recently a resident of Naples, Fla., he belonged to the Glades Country Club and was a parishioner of St. Ann\u2019s Church in Naples. In Ridgefield, Conn, he enjoyed the Ridgefield Men\u2019s Club, and was a past member of the Ridgefield Board of Education.<\/p>\n
He leaves his wife of 31 years Marilyn (Vargo) Dempsey, and a son Stuart and his family.<\/p>\n
Burial took place on June 22, at St. Mary\u2019s Church, Ridgefield, Conn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A professor of educational leadership for more than 20 years, Dempsey worked closely with Connecticut schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":50011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-102960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-01 22:08:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102961,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102960\/revisions\/102961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/50011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102960"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=102960"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=102960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}