Lifelong learner

Julie Brown

Kem Edwards ’49 in 2010 in the Jonathan Edwards College library, where he liked to study. View full image

Kem Edwards ’49 couldn’t stay away from Yale.

At the age of 68, retired from a career in computer systems management for the insurance industry and living with his wife, Phoebe, in New Jersey, he decided to audit a few Yale courses. In the fall of 1996, he rented an apartment in downtown New Haven and enrolled in three classes. He was so enamored with the experience that he continued the following semester. And the one after that. By 2009, having audited nearly a hundred classes, he persuaded Phoebe to sell their New Jersey home and move to New Haven with him (and audit some classes herself). By the time he died last November 27 at 96 years old, he had audited more than 150 courses—the equivalent of four more bachelor’s degrees.

“I sometimes say that I’m making up for a misspent youth,” he told this magazine in 2010. “Some truth to that: I was a ‘gentleman’s C’ scholar overall. But I had a wonderful experience at Yale, and if I didn’t make Dean’s List, I think I was imbued with the idea that education is a lifelong thing.”

Kem and Phoebe integrated themselves not only into the life of the university but also into the surrounding community. They opened their home to exchange students and refugees, and Kem volunteered with Planned Parenthood, the Episcopal church, and several other organizations.

Edwards marched in every commencement from 1995 until 2022. A winner of the Yale Medal in 2015 for his volunteer work for the university, “Kem was representative of the very best of Yale’s past, which he appreciated deeply,” says Penelope Laurans, the former head of Jonathan Edwards College, where Edwards was a fellow. “But he was never stuck in the past. He was constantly curious, loved young people—he was a highly popular adviser for JE students well into his 90s—and he believed just as strongly in Yale’s future.” He served as his class secretary from 2014 until his death, writing alumni notes for this magazine.

Edwards’s most intense dedication was to the Whiffenpoofs. At the time of his death, he was one of the oldest living members of the Whiffs. Keeping the group’s legacy strong was as important to him as reveling in its past. Al Atherton ’59, a fellow Whiff alum, says that “perhaps the foremost Whiff connection was what Kem did to pass the legacy to each new Whiff group at Mory’s every fall. For years, Kem was instrumental in bringing new lost lambs into the fold.”

Edwards said he was a more committed student in his second career at Yale. “When he told me that he read every single book assigned for the classes he audited, I knew he was telling the truth,” says Laurans. “Is there anyone at Yale—before or since—who has had such appreciation of the opportunities offered here?”