NORTHAMPTON - Stanley Rothman, Mary Huggins Gamble professor emeritus of government and director of the Center for the Study of Social and Political Change at Smith College, died unexpectedly on Wednesday evening, Jan. 5, 2011, in Northampton, at the age of 83.

He was born in New York City on Aug. 4, 1927, to Jack Rothman and Rose (Kleinberg) Rothman. He served in the Navy toward the end of World War II and, following his discharge, earned degrees from The City College of New York, Brown University, and a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University, where he worked with the renowned Samuel Beer and Louis Hartz, writing a dissertation on the British Labor Party. From there he moved in 1956 to the government department of Smith College where he taught for 38 years until his retirement in 1994, becoming in the process - as one of his colleagues put it - "widely recognized as one of the most prolific scholars of his generation."

In addition to his tenure at Smith College, where he took his turn as chair of the department, he also taught as visiting lecturer at Yale and Harvard universities, at the Universidad Iberio America in Mexico, the Catholic University of Santiago, Chile, and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He also served for many years as honorary chairman of the National Association of Scholars in Princeton, N.J.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa, he was recipient of numerous awards, among them one from the New England chapter of the American Medical Writers' Association for his book "Environmental Cancer: A Political Disease," and the Sidney Hook award from the National Association of Scholars, for distinguished contribution to freedom and integrity of the academy. He lectured widely, not only in the United States, but also in China, Japan, England, Germany, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

While carrying out his duties as teacher and adviser to students and his membership activities on numerous college and professional boards, Rothman authored, or co-authored with a team of researchers he assembled, over 20 books, among them: "European Society and Politics" (1970); "Roots of Radicalism" (1982); "The Media Elite" (1986); "The IQ Controversy" (1988); "Giving for Social Justice" (1994); and "Hollywood's America" (1996).

Rothman's articles, numbering some 130 and appearing in leading political science journals, ranged widely. His early work on comparative government and on approaches to the study of politics gradually came to focus more and more on extensive survey research concerning the widely differing views and attitudes of numerous "elites" in American society, whether in academe, journalism, philanthropy, entertainment, the learned professions, Hollywood, business groups, scientists, the military, the clergy and others. He early documented what has since become evident: that a wide gap has grown between some of these groups, and also between some of them and the wider public, dissolving, in the process, what had since the Civil War generally been a consensus on fundamental American values. As he knew they would be, his articles, reprinted on numerous occasions, proved to be highly controversial.

Rothman's last book: "The Still Divided Academy: How Competing Versions of Power, Politics and Diversity Complicate the Mission of Higher Education," written in conjunction with April Kelly-Woessner and Matthew Woessner, appeared only a month before his death. Based on an extensive survey of students, professors and others at many institutions of higher learning in America, Rothman's final effort fittingly reflected his continued interest in the state of his own profession

He leaves his wife of 54 years, Eleanor B. Rothman; and a son, David, and his wife, Emily, and two grandsons, Jacob and Noah, of Colorado. He also leaves a brother, Larry Schwartz and his family, of Queens, N.Y. His son Michael and his sister, Irma, predeceased him.

Stanley Rothman will be remembered by friends and colleagues as a kind and witty man. They and future generations will esteem him as a scholar of insatiable curiosity who turned his formidable intellectual gifts to often-sensitive topics that will have relevance far beyond his lifetime. "Stan Rothman," in the words of Stephen Balch, his longtime colleague in the National Association of Scholars, "was the gift of a passing generation of scholars to scholars yet to be born."

Contributions in his memory may be made to the Eleanor B. Rothman Ada Comstock Scholars Endowment Fund at Smith College, and sent to 33 Elm St., Northampton, MA 01063.