A glimpse of an Arizona State University professor, from his obituary.
Born in Bogota, N.J., in 1923, [George] Paulsen served as a U.S. naval officer in the Pacific theater in World War II. Following the war, he pursued advanced degrees in history, receiving an undergraduate degree in 1949 from Hobart College and a doctorate in 1959 from Ohio State University, where he was a student of Foster Rhea Dulles.
At ASU, Paulsen was known among basketball players in the department for his unorthodox hook shot. He also regaled his colleagues with accounts of the early years of the ASU History Department when its graduate program was small and its library resources limited.
According to history colleague Stephen Batalden, Paulsen was an ardent Democrat and longtime member of the American Civil Liberties Union, who lived modestly, rarely driving his 1965 Plymouth Barracuda out of its place in the garage.
Two years ago Paulsen sustained serious head and neck injuries in a bicycle accident in Tempe, never fully regaining his health, though he continued to read widely until the last weeks of his life, according to Batalden, director of ASU’s Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.