Submitted by Susanna J Westen
on
UW Professor Emeritus Jože Velikonja, who taught geography at UW from 1964 through 1993, died on May 23, 2015, in Nova Gorica, Slovenia, at the age of 92, and was laid to rest at Ljubljana's central Žale Cemetery on May 27. Professor Velikonja was an active faculty member of UW's Russian and Far Eastern Institute (now Ellison Center), a founding member of the Society for Slovene Studies, and a widely published scholar on Slovene geography and emigration, as well as other subjects. Professor Velikonja was the first to establish UW as a North American center for Slovene studies, laying the foundation for subsequent growth.
For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Velikonja