Steven Ackley

R. Steven Ackley, an adored and much beloved father, grandfather and audiology professor, died unexpectedly on June 2 while sleeping at his home in Fort Collins, Colo. He was 67. The cause of death was congestive heart failure and vascular disease. Steve, as he was known, mentored numerous students over the years and dazzled them in the classroom with his humor, down-to-earth charm, love of learning and scientific research and guidance to question what they thought they knew. Since 2000, he had been a professor at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. He previously served as chairman of the university’s Department of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences and most recently was director of the department’s Ph.D. program. He taught many graduate-level audiology courses with a focus on pediatric, medical and geriatric audiology, balance testing and anatomy and physiology. He also served as a confidant, mentor and personal comedian to his students, who routinely called him their favorite professor, showered him with copious thank-you notes and expressed their love for him and his compassionate nature. Before joining Gallaudet, he served as chairman of the Audiology and Speech-Language Sciences Department at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and had previously been a professor at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. He wrote research-based articles and book chapters and edited “An Essential Guide to Hearing and Balance Disorders” published in 2007. He won numerous awards from his colleagues and students. He served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Southwestern and Rocky Mountain Division from 2001 to 2003. He spent much of his professional life teaching students and helping people. In college, he worked as a counselor at Camp Courage for children with special needs. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Cornell College in Iowa. He received a master’s degree in deaf education from what is now McDaniel College and then worked at the Maryland School for the Deaf. He earned his Ph.D. in audiology from the University of Colorado, where he developed a lifelong love of the state’s mountains, camping and fly fishing. He enjoyed Shakespeare, especially CU’s summer productions performed outdoors, and he wooed his future wife with poetry he wrote. In addition to his focus on audiology, he taught sign language. No matter the subject, he inspired students with a thirst for knowledge, discovery and caring. He counseled his students about their career paths and worried about the personal details, such as them finding housing in safe neighborhoods in D.C. He was known to many of them as “Ackley” or simply “Ack.” He had recently conducted research on hearing health among Native American and Alaskan Native peoples, and was about to embark on a one-year sabbatical leave helping the Ojibwe people of Minnesota by analyzing data related to their hearing health. This research initiative was to be sustained for several years by his doctoral students. He was a Baltimore Orioles and Colorado Rockies fan, but his favorite baseball team was that of Denver’s South High School when his son played first base. He was an utterly devoted father and grandfather, whose kind smile became a fixture at his grandchildren’s day care, St. Ann’s in Hyattsville, Md. He almost never missed a school function, and regularly picked them up, his eyes and their eyes lighting up whenever “Papa Stebes” arrived. When he vacationed in Colorado in recent summers, he sent his granddaughter postcards with beautiful mountain scenes every day. Among the many gifts he lavished his grandkids was a microscope for his granddaughter, fostering the next generation of scientists. He was a gracious and generous host, who enjoyed preparing feasts, especially of smoked ribs and pulled pork. If his kids needed a ride to the airport at 3 in the morning, Papa Stebes was happy to do it and would bring juice boxes and snacks, too. He is survived and desperately missed by his daughter, Kate Ackley Zeller, her husband Shawn and grandchildren Madelyn and Luke of Washington, D.C.; his son, United States Air Force Capt. Jonathan Ackley and his wife, Brittany Edwards, who currently reside in South Korea; his former wife, Mary K. Ackley of Denver; two brothers, James Ackley of Payson, Utah, and Alan Ackley of Des Moines, Iowa; as well as cousins, nephews, in-laws and many adoring former students and colleagues. He was preceded in death by his parents, Karen N. and Wayne Ackley of Des Moines, Iowa. Visitation and services will be held from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Sunday, June 9, 2013 at The Lodge at Mackenzie Place, 4751 Pleasant Oak Drive, Fort Collins, and at 3 p.m. Saturday, June 15 at Chapel Hall on the Gallaudet campus in Washington, D.C.

Steven Ackley

March 5, 1946 - June 2, 2013