Sandy Kallen said her husband of 16 years was passionate about his work and MSU’s reputation for being on the cutting edge of clinical sociology, a field Kallen was instrumental in bringing to the university.

“He worked with the same group of people, shared the same office with the same people,” Sandy Kallen said. “He liked his life at MSU very much. He was very pleased with what he did and was proud of his work.”

Ben Kallen, David Kallen’s son, said his father managed to keep dinner conversations interesting throughout his childhood, often bringing his work home with him. He kept the family surrounded by academia.

“I think in some ways, he was the definition of an intellectual,” Ben Kallen said.

Donald Kaufman, a pediatrician at MSU and one of David Kallen’s close friends, said Kallen had a dry sense of humor that often manifested itself in amusing ways. Kallen once wrote the first report of the Department of Pediatrics and Human Development in the style of the book of Genesis.

Kaufman also recalled Kallen’s run-ins with parking enforcement during the early days of the department.

“We used to get all kinds of tickets and give them to David,” Kaufman said. “He would bundle them up in a big stack, wrap a rubber band around them and send them back to public safety. He’d just send them back and never pay them off. That was just classic David.”

Ben Kallen said his father was one of the first people to promote the idea of clinical sociology, which is the practice of using sociology in practical ways.

Colleague and pediatric psychologist Elizabeth Seagull said Kallen cared about every member of every social group, so it wasn’t difficult for him to transfer that passion to his students.

“He really wanted medical students, residents and physicians to understand the effects of social position on people’s behavior,” Seagull said. “He wanted physicians to be able to see a patient through the lens of life experience, including their social context.”

Seagull said Kallen went on rounds with residents in hospitals and continuously asked questions about patients’ social situations.

“He was always asking the hard questions,” Kaufman said.

Despite this tendency to challenge others, Ben Kallen said his father wasn’t just respected; he was loved by his friends and colleagues.

“People loved him, but people liked him, too,” Ben Kallen said.

“He was always an interesting person to be around, a fun and interesting conversationalist.”

Ben Kallen said his father had a lifelong passion for photography. On family vacations around the country, Ben Kallen said his father was able to humanize people through photographs.

“I just wish we had more of him, because he was always the one doing the photography,” he said.

Seagull said Kallen had enough of an impact on the family he loved, the colleagues he worked with, the students he taught and the university he improved that she is certain Kallen would not be forgotten.

“I’m really going to miss him,” she said. “He really was a sweet person.”