Robert Singleton

Professor Robert Singleton spent almost four decades in dedicated service to Loyola Marymount University as a teacher, scholar, administrative leader, and dialogue partner with the outside world, contributing wholeheartedly to LMU's mission in the purest sense of the term. As a graduate student, he and his wife, Helen led a group to join the Freedom Riders in Alabama, where he suffered the indignity of being arrested, convicted, and jailed on death row (as a scare tactic) for almost two months. He subsequently joined the U.S. Department of Labor as an economist and later came back to Los Angeles and set up a consulting firm that advised on labor-related issues. He was also a member of the influential 1968 Kerner (U.S. Presidential) Commission that investigated the 1967 riots. Afterward, based on the demands of a young and growing family and the need to pass on his life experiences to the following generations, he fortunately answered Professor John Davis’ suggestion to join LMU as an assistant professor of economics. 

Professor Singleton was an outstanding and innovative educator, incorporating new computer technology in educating the students even while drilling in the fundamentals of the discipline. He became a leader in the innovative and interdisciplinary methods of Geographical Information Systems (GIS), which involves the management, analysis, and display of geographic information and requires knowledge of economics, urban science, statistics, geography, and computer programming. Professor Singleton has demonstrated significant dedication to LMU through his service on the university’s boards, committees, and councils. He served as department chair for a dozen plus years, creating a modern economics department that was not just of high professional quality but also quite diverse for the times. He used his position as department chair to facilitate connections between LMU's students, faculty, and staff of color and the rest of the LMU community. Every single minority studies program at LMU exists due to his influence, direct or otherwise.

Throughout his career he prioritized the strengthening of racial relations in academia and used his experience and his connections with the Freedom Riders movement to inform and nudge the academic community to pay greater attention to racial equality. His activities have brought both him and LMU international recognition. Australians have honored him by creating an Aborigines' rights movement patterned after his UCLA housing rights movement. President Obama honored Professor and Helen Singleton at a White House Freedom Riders event; he, in turn, has honored LMU by bringing in many members of the Freedom Riders to speak at various times and at various events in the Los Angeles area. Professor Singleton has demonstrated by example how an individual, getting together with like-minded others, can rise up and make society take a hard look at the corrosive prejudices that gnaw away at the foundations of an otherwise democratic society.