More than 400 people, including students, faculty and friends, gathered in the Memorial Chapel Thursday to remember Ken Joseph, the associate director of the College Park Scholars Media, Self, and Society program who died Feb. 5.
The service, which lasted about an hour, hosted speakers from all facets of Joseph's life and provided the portrait of a man committed to students, friends, family and the connection between the three.
The service was the first Scholars event in a decade that Joseph didn't help set up, said Greig Stewart, executive director of College Park Scholars, in his welcoming remarks.
Joseph's dedication to the Scholars program was the dominant theme of the afternoon.
"Many of us are not here because we lost a teacher, but rather because we lost a friend," said Kyle Goon, a 2008 graduate of the Scholars program and an editor at The Diamondback. Goon spoke of Joseph during the memorial's "Ken, the Advisor" section. "It's clear to me that nothing mattered more to him than our own wellbeing."
Joseph worked with Mike Colson, associate director for admissions and registration, since the day he was hired by the university in 1999. He began as a program assistant in admissions, and two years later became the assistant director of the Media, Self, and Society Scholars program.
"There is no one more deserving of this tribute today than Ken Joseph," he said.
Kalyani Chadha, director of the Media, Self, and Society program, worked closely with Joseph and said that despite his close relationship with students, he was also a firm administrator.
"He never shied away from his enforcer role," she said during the memorial's "Ken, the Steadying Force" section. "I'll never forget him studying in the back of the room, glaring at students that dared to text during colloquium."
Although Joseph had been dedicated to his various roles at the university for the past few years, he also touched lives of those outside and off the campus - friend and speaker Jan Munsey met Joseph while he was working at a Baltimore book store in the early 1990s.
"Within a week, I was working there," she said while remembering Joseph during "Ken, the Friend." "Within a week, I knew I had met my best friend."
Munsey went on to ask Joseph to be the maid of honor at her wedding, saying that he "even offered to wear a dress."
Students, who left the memorial in droves, said they found the ceremony fitting for Joseph's memory.
"I thought it was done really well," said sophomore Kenny Gartner, who is in the Media, Self, and Society program. "There wasn't a better way to say goodbye to him."
Senior linguistics major Michael Levine agreed.
"It was nice to see him memorialized this way," he said.
Karen Joseph, Joseph's sister, was appreciative of the turnout - which stretched until the middle sections of the chapel - and said that Joseph would have been, as well.
"He would want you to remember him as a joyous person who loved all of you," she said.
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