Ronald J. DiCenzo Papers

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Ronald J. DiCenzo, a specialist in Japanese History, was a member of the Oberlin College faculty from 1972 to 2005. He was born in Lakawanna, New York on June 25, 1939 to a multigenerational immigrant family. His grandfather, his father, and he himself for a time worked at the Bethlehem Steel plant in Lackawanna. 

DiCenzo excelled as a student and won a New York State Regents Scholarship to attend Canisius College in Buffalo, a Jesuit institution, from 1957 to 1961. Afterward he undertook graduate studies at the University of Kansas, where he shifted his interest from East European history to Japan for his M.A. in 1964. At the University of Hawai’i, he won a prestigious fellowship at the newly established, federally funded East-West Center. In conjunction with this affiliation, DiCenzo spent two years in Japan in the mid-1960s for advanced language training. Upon his return from Japan, he attended Princeton University and subsequently moved to Japan on a Fulbright scholarship for dissertation research at the end of the 1960s. He received the Ph.D. from Princeton in 1978.

DiCenzo joined the Oberlin College faculty in 1972 to teach Japanese history and sub-Saharan African history, and soon afterward offered Japanese language courses as well. This was precisely the period of burgeoning interest in Japan as an economic and cultural superpower. In the mid-1970s, he helped Oberlin affiliate with the newly-formed Associate Kyoto Program, a consortium of elite small colleges in the United States and through which he many students for study abroad in Japan. Over the next decade he built up considerable interest as a one-person academic and cultural resource on Japan.

In the course of his career, DiCenzo became very popular with students and annually taught a two-semester survey of Japanese history with enrollments ranging from 75 to 150 each. He would learn the names of all the students quickly and would conduct extra discussion sessions each week throughout the semester. DiCenzo also offered an array of lower- and upper-level seminars on both premodern and modern Japan topics, including Japanese literature. He continued to teach Japanese language for almost two decades until the college could establish the curriculum in the early 1990s. When the college launched its first teaching award in 1990, DiCenzo was the inaugural recipient.

What made DiCenzo compelling as a teacher and colleague was his spontaneity and his wide-ranging knowledge and interests. He loved the company of students and would regularly gather several students to treat to a Chinese meal. Many students were so inspired that they went on to establish careers related to Japan or Asia; some went on to occupy prestigious academic positions at top universities. When he finally retired in 2005, more than 100 former students returned to campus for his farewell reception.

In retirement DiCenzo continued to be a voracious reader until his eyesight began to fail. He continued his earlier interests in Japanese gardening and collecting Asian antiques. Living in Oberlin was a great joy to him, and he made friends widely inside and outside of the college community. During his last decade, he dealt with numerous health problems. DiCenzo had no immediate family in his later years and left no survivors upon his death on November 4, 2017 at the age of 78. In 2018 his extensive Asian art collection of fine Chinese and Japanese ceramics, decorative art, furniture, scrolls and rugs was auctioned by Gray’s Auctioneers.

SOURCES CONSULTED

James Dobbins, Memorial Minute for Ronald J. DiCenzo, Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Winter 2018-19, page 59.

Ronald J. DiCenzo faculty file, Alumni and Development Records (RG 28), Oberlin College Archives.

“An Extraordinary Private Collection of Asian Decorative Arts," Gray’s Auctioneers website. Accessed July 16, 2020.

Collection of Dr. Ronald J. DiCenzo Will be Auctioned off" ARTFIXdaily, August 30, 2018. Accessed July 16, 2020.

Note written by Abby Rickin-Marks