Former mathematics and computer science professor dies at age 75

By Olivia Pero Assistant editor

Retired mathematics and computer science professor Jack Reinoehl died Jan. 14 at 75 years old in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

“He really loved working with students, and everything he did, he did with love. It got us very interested in the topic and made it very enjoyable,” said Paulina Volosov, assistant professor of mathematics who graduated from Hillsdale in 2014.

Reinoehl taught at Hillsdale for 32 years and helped create the college’s computer science minor.

He earned his undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.

Volosov knew Reinoehl from taking his complex analysis class during her time as a student at Hillsdale. Reinoehl had a teaching style that matched his personality, she said.

“He was a very kind, soft-spoken person,” Volosov said. “So his teaching style was along those lines, but he had a very nice sense of humor that would appear frequently.”

Professor of Mathematics David Murphy said Reinoehl was always smiling.

“That was just his personality,” Murphy said. “He was happy to be doing the work he did.”

Associate Professor of Mathematics Samuel Webster said when he thinks of Reinoehl’s legacy, his passion for birding comes to mind first.

“You could almost argue that birds were his profession, and math was a hobby,” Webster said. “I’m obviously flipping the two there, but that’s how much he loved and enjoyed birds.”

Reinoehl could identify different types of birds merely by listening to their calls, and he regularly contributed to annual counts for Michigan and birding publications until his death, Volosov said.

During his sabbaticals, Reinoehl would travel around the world to study different types of birds, Murphy said.

“He would do a lot for the college unrelated to mathematics,” Webster said. “He would assist the biology department with things about birds, and he would take guests visiting campus around and identify birds.”

Webster said he has wonderful memories of driving around with Reinoehl in the spring identifying the birds that were returning.

One birding outing, Webster said Reinoehl took the two of them and Thomas Treloar, chairman and professor of mathematics, to a cemetery in the southern part of the county.

“He took us there in early March, and there was a group of about 30 long-eared owls on their migration pattern back up north,” Webster said.

“He knew that they were there. I’ve since gone back occasionally, and I know Jack would go back too, but those owls never returned to that cemetery as part of their migration pattern.”

Even after he retired in 2014, Reinoehl would always return in the spring for the graduating seniors’ luncheon, Murphy said. “We were able to see him again last spring,” Murphy said. “It was always fun to see him, and hear about what he’d been doing. He was upbeat and happy, and it seemed like that was the way that it continued until just recently.”