Rosalind F. Kaplan, a former staff member at Boston College Law School, passed away on July 31, at age eighty-two. Her contributions to BC Law over the course of thirty-one years starting in 1976, were many.
Kaplan, who went by the nickname Roz, worked in various administrative capacities, including as manager of law review publications. Colleagues and friends remember her as a knowledgeable, kind, and gracious person.
In 1989, Kaplan was proud to see her daughter, Allison Romantz, receive her JD, cum laude, from BC Law.
“Roz was a famously outgoing person,” said John Gordon, the current manager of publications at BC Law. “A group of my friends had on-campus jobs the summer after our 1L year. One day we were walking down the hall and (half kiddingly) said, “We’re all going out for lunch Roz if you want to come.” Roz’s response: “I’d love to. Do you need me to drive?” And, we had the best time! It turned out that Roz became a very consequential person in my life. We worked closely during my upper-level years. After graduation I said to Roz: I want your job. I’m serious; when you’re ready to retire, call me. Years later Roz did call. She said she wasn’t quite ready to retire but, because of advances in desktop publishing, the school was expanding the department to bring all of the Review’s production work in-house. If I was serious, the job was mine. That was in 1995, and 27 very happy years later, I’m still here, all because of Roz.”
Kaplan’s service extended to many people outside of the Law School. She taught English as a Second Language at the Harvard School of Continuing Education/Harvard Institute for English Language Learning, at Bunker Hill Community College, and in Israel. She also helped “refuseniks” to escape from the Soviet Union and settle in the US in the late 1980’s and 1990s, and served on the Board of Action for Soviet Jewry (now Action for Post-Soviet Jewry).