Allan Saxe, the eccentric former political science professor at UT-Arlington who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars of his modest earnings to dozens of humanitarian causes, has died at age 85.
While he will be remembered by generations of college students for his passion in the classroom, stimulating debate and challenging them to think differently about politics and society, his greatest legacy is undoubtedly his generosity – immortalized with his name in arts venues, athletic fields, gardens, libraries, scholarships, road signs, clinics, parks and homeless services.
He felt compelled to make the world around him a better place – but he also enjoyed seeing his name given to the causes he promoted.
“With Allan, the first thing he thinks when he has a little extra money is, ‘Where can I give it?’” his wife Ruthie Brock told the Star-Telegram for a 1993 profile on him. “He really takes pleasure in finding the need himself. I would be surprised if there was another human being like that in the world.”
As Saxe said, he spent most of his humble and frugal life trying to compensate for a feeling of inferiority. “I’m buying immortality,” he said in that 1993 story. “I’m buying love.”
Saxe taught at UT-Arlington for 54 years and served as an adjunct at Tarrant County College. He was a founding member of the Arlington Life Shelter and a generous supporter of Mission Arlington, the River Legacy Foundation, Theater Arlington, the Humane Society of North Texas, and the Fort Worth Zoo.
“He was engaging, intelligent, funny and opinionated, and his classes were considered unmissable by generations of UT Arlington students,” Jennifer Cowley, president of UT-Arlington, said in a statement. “His legacy of overwhelming generosity and kindness is visible on our campus and in our region…We at UT Arlington are forever grateful.”
Born and raised in Oklahoma City, Saxe learned volunteering from his mother. Neither of his parents studied beyond high school and they worked odd jobs their entire lives. His father died when he was 19; His mother continued to work and volunteer for clubs and causes.
Over the course of 45 years, she invested in stocks, which gave her a substantial inheritance when she died. A year after her funeral, Saxe donated at least $400,000, most of which came from the inheritance and some artwork he owned. For years, he donated at least half of his $50,000 annual salary at UT-Arlington, where he began teaching in 1965.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Saxe appeared weekly in a five-minute segment on WFAA called “The World According to Saxe.” The segments featured a comedic Saxe pointing out the absurdities of life – a cross between Weird Al Yankovic and Andy Rooney.
He also wrote a newspaper columnist for the Arlington edition of the Star-Telegram that highlighted his quirky personality.
At UT-Arlington, Saxe quickly emerged as a popular instructor because he enjoyed stimulating debates and hosting controversial guest speakers such as atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright, and Gerald Ford before becoming president.
What most people forget, Saxe told the Star-Telegram in 1993, is that he always brought in speakers who represented opposing points of view. The day after O’Hair’s visit, a fundamentalist Baptist minister addressed Saxe’s class, he said.
In 1975, students and teachers were among his staunchest supporters when he ran for City Council. He lost to a well-known figure in the community in a close campaign and vowed never to run for public office again after the humility he felt when he took down his campaign signs.
Instead, he turned his political passions to the classroom — and to the many causes he supported with his own money.
He donated $50,000 to the Central Library for a computer lab. He gave thousands more to the Levitt Pavilion, being a big fan of their free outdoor concerts. He pledged $100,000 to the River Legacy Nature Center and funded picnic tables and a pavilion.
Saxe donated $100,000 for renovations to the UT-Arlington Athletic Complex, a collection of baseball, softball and soccer fields.
And when the city in 2009 cut funding for traffic control for the popular holiday light display in the Interlochen neighborhood, he footed the bill out of his own pocket. He told the Star-Telegram in 2011 that he loved watching the constant stream of cars slowly winding through the neighborhood, with “kids hanging out of the car windows, the dogs and the cats.”
“It’s really good,” he said. “I know it sounds corny, but it’s true. I love the lights so much I wish they stayed on all year long.”
Saxe, who contracted polio as a child, donated money to a UT-Arlington scholarship for students with disabilities. “Donating money is a wonderful business,” Saxe told MyArlingtonTV in 2017. “I love it. Arlington has been a wonderful place for me. I think it has a great future ahead of it and it has been a dream city for me.”
In 2003, Saxe was honored at the Star-Telegram Awards Recognizing Service. The newspaper noted that Saxe gave his students extra credit for community work, but said that good citizenship does not depend on performing public works.
“I always say in my classes that if people took care of themselves a little more, that would be the best community service,” Saxe said.
