Mary Knudten, the former dean of the Waukesha campus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, died late last month while on a trip to New York City. She was 87 years old.
A native of Kansas City, she was adopted shortly after birth and grew up in Salinas, Kansas. She earned a bachelor’s degree in bacteriology at the University of Kansas, where she met her husband, who later went on to teach at several different colleges.
Mary Knudten later earned a master’s degree in sociology at Valparaiso University in Indiana. She and her husband both joined the faculty at Marquette University in Milwaukee. While there she earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.
Dr. Knudten left Marquette to cofound and head a criminal-justice research firm with her husband. In 1980, she was named dean and CEO of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Waukesha. She served in that position until her retirement in 1999.