Fons was an absolute giant, no a GIANT of the field. By field, I include cross-cultural psychology, personality assessment, acculturation, multiculturalism, international psychology, and testing and measurement.There were so many fields where he made significant contributions. There are people who become professionals in a field and do so competently. There are people who participate in a discipline and become part of the mix of the discipline. There are also people who make significant contributions to a field. Finally, there are people who change the field and move it forward. Fons was just such a scholar. I dare say that many of the contributors on this page would have loved to spend a post-doctoral year learning from Fons. I certainly would have. However, as strong a scholar as he was, his soul was stronger. He was a life force. He stood for the best of human values, and it was that combination of supreme scholarship and outstanding human values that made us all admire Fons van de Vijver to the extent we did.
Fons was an absolute giant, no a GIANT of the field. By field, I include cross-cultural psychology, personality assessment, acculturation, multiculturalism, international psychology, and testing and measurement.There were so many fields where he made significant contributions. There are people who become professionals in a field and do so competently. There are people who participate in a discipline and become part of the mix of the discipline. There are also people who make significant contributions to a field. Finally, there are people who change the field and move it forward. Fons was just such a scholar. I dare say that many of the contributors on this page would have loved to spend a post-doctoral year learning from Fons. I certainly would have. However, as strong a scholar as he was, his soul was stronger. He was a life force. He stood for the best of human values, and it was that combination of supreme scholarship and outstanding human values that made us all admire Fons van de Vijver to the extent we did.
