John Thomas Osander -“Jack”

Former Princeton University Director of Admissions, Triangle Club President, educator and author John Thomas Osander passed away Thursday March 24th 2023 at the age of 87 in his adopted hometown of Princeton New Jersey.

Born June 24th 1935, the only child to Fredrick John and Helen Kathryn Osander (née Woods), “Jack” was raised in Minneapolis, MN.

Osander attended Washburn High School where he found himself especially drawn to the great novelists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries like William Faulkner, Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He began creative writing in earnest during this time, especially through his work on the school paper, “The Daily Grist.”

A scratch golfer in his teens, he considered a sport scholarship before his fascination with Fitzgerald in particular helped lead him to apply to Princeton University. Osander was in fact accepted by all four colleges to which he’d applied: Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth and Carleton. In the end he chose Princeton, for one reason because of his interest in the Triangle Club, an undergraduate group that writes, produces and performs an entire musical every year, a club where Fitzgerald also had been a member.

In Osander’s senior year, he was elected Triangle Club president. During his tenure he contributed lyrics and stories for three productions.

Also at Princeton, Osander joined Tower Club, becoming its vice president by the time he was a senior.

His desire to write his senior thesis on F. Scott Fitzgerald was rejected by the English Department, that somehow still hadn’t yet accepted Fitzgerald’s legendary status as thesis-worthy enough, so Osander instead settled for writing on William Faulkner.

In his senior year Osander won the Daily Princetonian award as the undergraduate making the "greatest physical and moral contributions to the University.”

Upon graduating in 1957 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Osander taught English and theater at the Blake School in Minneapolis. Next he studied theater direction at Yale Drama School and then attended Harvard Graduate School where he received a Masters of Education degree, after which he taught English and theater at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Sudbury, MA.

It was in nearby Cambridge, MA that he would meet his wife to be Patricia. They married in 1961 in Worcester, MA and would go on to have two sons, Tom (1966) and Christopher (1968).

In 1963 the young couple settled in the Princeton, NJ area where Osander returned to the University and began working as an admissions officer. He would become Director of Admissions in 1966 and serve until 1971. It was under his guidance that the first women were admitted to the university and he oversaw a 20% increase in minority applications and enrollment.

In 1971 and for the next 11 years Osander was employed by ETS (Educational Testing Services), where he helped design the Educational Passport, an efficient means, at the time, of condensing all of a student’s records and educational history on microfiche for fast and easy distribution.

From 1984 to 1991 he worked for the state of New Jersey as Director of Teacher Recruitment and Placement, finding jobs for thousands of teachers in public schools.

Also during that time Osander began working with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, eventually serving as Senior Deputy to the President until 1997 and co-authoring 5 major policy books on Preschools, Colleges, Medical Education, Technology and Leadership.

Officially retiring in 1997, Osander continued to pursue his passion for writing, authoring several novels including the loosely biographical Country Matters (2000) and Fitzgerald inspired Call Me Kick! (2002), in addition to numerous short stories, scripts, adaptations and magazine pieces.

Along the way Osander found time to act in or direct productions of Harvey, Finian’s Rainbow, Inherit the Wind, 1776 and many more as well as appearing on the Ed Sullivan and Ernie Kovacs shows.

He was a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors League of America, Thoreau and Fitzgerald Societies, Playwrights Center and Loft Literary Center.

A contentedly private man in general, Osander was an avid birdwatcher and keen golfer, he loved the beaches of Cape Cod, Chatham Athletics baseball and the stillness of an early weekend morning, black coffee in hand as he waited patiently in a bird blind at the Truro National Seashore, hoping to spot a Tern, an Osprey or perhaps an elusive Piping Plover.

John, ”Os,” Dad, Grandpa Jack is survived by his former wife Patty, two sons, Tom and Chris and three grandchildren, Connor, Ben and Robin, all of whom he loved dearly.

“Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost” Henry James

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