Gudmund Ragnvaldsson Iversen

Gudmund Ragnvaldsson Iversen, a well-loved husband, father, grandfather, and professor emeritus at Swarthmore College, passed away peacefully on May 2 in Springfield, PA. He was 91 years old. He was born on September 14, 1934, in Trondheim, Norway, to Torborg Iversen, a beloved grandmother and amateur genealogist, and Ragnvald Iversen, a linguistics professor at the University of Trondheim.

The oldest of two children, Gudmund grew up in Trondheim, Norway, with his sister, Reidun, and close friends in the neighborhood—Kjell Hagemark, Iver Lykke, and Odd Sjøholt. Gudmund graduated from the Cathedral School in 1953 in Trondheim and studied at the University of Oslo for four years. He completed compulsory military service in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1958, serving in the signal corps. He was then invited to study at the University of Michigan for one year, arriving, as he often said, “with two suitcases and a backpack.” Settling right in, though, he started accumulating degrees, earning a Master’s in Sociology in 1960 and a second Master’s in Statistics in 1962. He married Catherine Sharp in October 1962 in New York City, and after living in Oslo for two years, the couple returned to the U.S., where he spent the rest of his life.

Gudmund completed his PhD in Statistics at Harvard University in 1968, and he, Catherine, and their two children, Kirsten and Eric, moved to Ann Arbor, MI, that year. The family moved to Swarthmore, PA, in 1972. After Catherine’s untimely death in 1973, Gudmund married Roberta Rehner in 1974, creating a new family of six with John and Gretchen, ages 6 and 5.

Gudmund taught statistics at Swarthmore College until 2005. When he started teaching in 1972, he was the only statistics professor at the school. When he retired, four people held positions in the field and his department had been renamed the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, much to his pride. A consummate teacher, Gudmund delighted in teaching Intro Statistics without formulas, instead relying on conceptual understanding and leveraging advances in computers. He boasted that as much as 25 percent of a typical graduating class from Swarthmore College in any given year had taken his entry-level statistics class. His publications and textbooks on statistics in the social sciences and on statistical education have enduring readerships both in the U.S. and abroad. Gudmund was an early advocate for teaching Bayesian statistics, an approach at the core of computing and psychological sciences.

Gudmund and Roberta were avid travelers, visiting Norway, France, and Mexico many times over the years. They traveled to China in 1977 with a group from Swarthmore College, a rare opportunity to visit China prior to its official opening in 1978. Gudmund traveled to India two times on Rotary-sponsored visits to promote the eradication of polio. This issue held deep personal meaning for him, arising from a close childhood relationship with a farmer and family friend who was a wheelchair-bound polio survivor. Gudmund was a devoted father and grandfather who drove across the United States twice and traveled internationally to visit adult children on the West Coast and abroad.

Gudmund was active in the Swarthmore Rotary club from 1985 to 2022. He volunteered for the Swarthmore Senior Citizens Association and served on the board of the American Swedish Historical Museum. He was a fixture at town events and took photos for The Swarthmorean and Philadelphia arts organizations for many years.

He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Roberta; his children, Kirsten, Eric, John, and Gretchen; his grandchildren, Anna, Chisato, Glenn, Sonja, Elizabeth, Owen, Ivan, and Audrey; and sister Reidun and nephews Bonsak and Bjarne. A small family service will be held at Edgewood Memorial Cemetery, Glen Mills, PA. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Gudmund’s name to the American Swedish Historical Museum or Rotary International’s PolioPlus fund.