University of Texas
Sacha E. Kopp
October 3, 1967–August 15, 2024

 

 

Obituary from Pacific Northwest Cremation and Funeral, August 21, 2024

Sacha E. Kopp, 56, of Spokane, Washington, died suddenly at home on Thursday, August 15, 2024. Sacha E. Kopp passed into the mystery of God’s eternal love on Thursday, August 15, 2024. Taken by a sudden cardiac event, he was held by his wife, attended by gifted paramedics, and carried onward by the voices of his beloved children.

Sacha was born into the extraordinary love and care of Anita Rolaz on October 3, 1967 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Jay P. Kopp — a Loras College physics professor — entered their lives when Sacha was two years old, while Jay was on sabbatical in Zurich. He and Anita married and moved across the pond to Dubuque, Iowa. And so began a family that reared Sacha around a table filled often with neighbors, friends, colleagues, conversation, occasional costumes, great laughter, much love, affordable wine, good cheese, good bread, and the most sublime meals, compliments of Anita’s culinary arts.

Sacha attended Nativity grade school and Dubuque Wahlert High School and took classes at Loras College during his Wahlert years. He managed to graduate high school, a feat nearly imperiled by avoiding Physical Education until the bitter end. He read voraciously, took French lessons reluctantly, sketched effortlessly, and played trumpet loudly and in the wee hours, a choice not unnoticed by neighbors. He was baptized in a Catholic parish and served as an altar boy for Church of the Nativity and for the Sisters of the Visitation — communities whose prayers joined those of his godparents and flanked Sacha for decades thereafter. When Jay and Anita’s spousal partnership ended after Sacha’s departure for college, their family expanded to include Anita’s partner Rosemarie Bucher and Jay’s wife Jane Giellis.

Over eleven years in Chicago, Sacha earned an A.B., S.M. and Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Chicago. In the first of those years, a most loyal and lasting friendship began between Sacha and Simon Allentuch — a friendship lived out mostly through leisurely weekend phone conversations, deconstructing the world’s woes, debating issues and savoring music, film and reading recommendations. The friendship sustained them both through every season of life.

Amid a famed Chicago ice storm in 1992, Sacha met Gretchen Olson while answering phones for the WBEZ public radio fundraiser. And so began a great love. They married in the snow and bitter cold of November 12, 1995 in Syracuse, New York. Their fortunes in love were great. Their timing for weather, not so much. During their fifteen years in Austin, Texas, they welcomed two precious children — Eleanor and Elias. Sacha loved them fiercely through humor and hugs, games and guidance, movies and moral support, patience and prayers. He was so proud of them and loved showering generosity upon them.

His greatest aspiration was to live a life of integrity, humility, and service that would inspire their own. His professional calling in higher education took the family across the country — five years as a post-doc and visiting assistant professor at Syracuse University; nearly fifteen years at the University of Texas at Austin as a professor of physics, associate chair for undergraduate affairs in the physics department, and later as Associate Dean of the College of Natural Sciences; nearly five years at Stony Brook University (Stony Brook, NY) most as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; three years at the University of Nebraska at Omaha as Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, and two years at Gonzaga University (Spokane, WA) as Provost and then Professor.

Wherever Sacha’s family went, a faith community became family. He cherished these close relationships from First English Lutheran Churches (Syracuse and Austin), Setauket Presbyterian (Setauket NY), The Urban Abbey and Kountze Memorial Lutheran (Omaha), and Salem Lutheran and St. Mark’s Lutheran (Spokane). He is indebted to these communities for the love with which they held him and sustained his family.

His impact as a physics professor, an elementary particle physicist, and a higher ed administrator are extensive and are best pondered with your favorite beverage while reading his LinkedIn page. Yes, he served on collaborations that both discovered the top quark and confirmed that neutrinos have mass; he led lobbying efforts to fund basic research, authored articles and text books, and launched and stewarded countless strategic plans, creative partnerships, institutes and degree programs, always sensing an opportunity or need and meeting it with collaboration and courage. But in his heart, Sacha was an an advocate of the liberal arts who believed every student should have real opportunity to grow as a scholar and a person into the fullness of their purpose. He saw capacities in institutions and people which at times they may not have seen in themselves and relished the role of mentor. In the end, he gave all he had to remove barriers and support the flourishing of the underdog, to foster a world in which what is right, good and true would triumph.

When not pouring himself into work with his formidable work ethic, he savored time with Gretchen and the kids, dove into a good presidential biography, cherished his LP collection, opted for simplicity and order when it came to possessions, and truly prized the chance to share a meal and conversation with family, friend or colleague. His family will remember him as selfless, self-deprecating, kind, generous, driven, artistic, steady, and giving…always giving, with his signature leavening humor at the ready and a current of mischief running just under the surface. He will be sorely missed on this earth.

Sacha was preceded in death by his dad Jay P. Kopp and his godparents, Tom and Theresa Auge. He is survived by his mother Anita and her partner Rosemarie Bucher, Jay’s wife Jane Giellis, Sacha’s spouse and soulmate Gretchen Olson Kopp, his precious children Eleanor Kopp (age 24) and Eli Kopp (age 20), and his dear friend Simon.

 

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Former Gonzaga provost dies at 56

From The Spokesman-Review, Aug. 21, 2024 by Cannon Barnett

Former Gonzaga University Provost Sacha Kopp died in his home on Thursday. He was 56 .

The death, thought to be caused by a heart attack, occurred “suddenly and unexpectedly, " Kopp's wife told Gonzaga.

Though only provost at Gonzaga for two years before stepping down in July, Kopp – who was a particle physicist by training—had more than three decades of experience in academia, as reported in the Gonzaga Bulletin.

Kopp grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, and received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in physics from the University of Chicago, he told The Spokesman-Review in 2022.

Getting his first faculty job at the University of Texas in 2000, he served as the associate chair of the physics department and associate dean for undergraduate education in the 15 years he spent with the university, he said in 2022. Kopp moved and became the dean of liberal arts at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2015, citing a desire to amass experiences with a variety of student bodies.

In 2019, he became the senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Two years later, he was appointed provost of Gonzaga. He said in 2022 the reason he came to Gonzaga was in large part due to the Jesuit model of the institution, which was reminiscent of the work of his father – a longtime faculty member at private Catholic Loras College in Dubuque.

“I’ve been an educator my whole life,” Kopp said in 2022. “And I chose that calling because I really think an education is a life-changing experience for young people.”

Although his budgeting work was controversial among Gonzaga faculty, according to reports by the Gonzaga Bulletin, a message sent out by Gonzaga President Thayne McCulloh said that Kopp “spent countless hours tackling challenges and identifying opportunities that might help Gonzaga become a better and more effective university.”

“He deeply appreciated the colleagues in the Provost’s Office with whom he worked, the faculty and staff with whom he partnered, and relished opportunities to participate in student events across the year,” McCulloh said in the message.

Kopp is survived by his wife Gretchen Olson Kopp, his children Eleanor and Eli, and his mother Anita. Messages of condolence for the family can be sent to either the Gonzaga’s Office of the President or Office of the Provost.

 

Sacha E. Kopp Photo Album

 

 

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