Emeritus faculty member Arnie Ostebee ’72 dies
St. Olaf Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Arnie Ostebee ’72, a scholar of applied mathematics who served as assistant provost of the college for a decade, died on October 11.
A funeral service will be held at 2:15 p.m. on October 23 at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Northfield.
After graduating from St. Olaf, where he majored in mathematics and physics, Ostebee went on to earn his doctorate in mathematical physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1977.
He stayed in New York for several years, serving as an instructor at the State University of New York Empire State College, before returning to St. Olaf in 1980 to teach mathematics. He remained on the college’s faculty for 34 years.
Ostebee served as chair of the Mathematics Department and as associate dean for the Natural Sciences and Mathematics faculty before becoming assistant provost in 2001.
An active member of the Mathematical Association of America, Ostebee presented at numerous conferences and professional gatherings. He co-wrote several calculus books with faculty colleague Paul Zorn and served as associate editor of the American Mathematical Monthly for 12 years.
Ostebee, who was married to St. Olaf Associate Professor of Mathematics Kay Smith for 32 years, retired from the college in 2014.
Read Ostebee’s obituary.