Keith Morton; Chaired CSUN Anthropology Department

Keith L. Morton, a longtime CSUN professor and former chairman of the university’s anthropology department, has died. He was 53.

Morton died Saturday after a yearlong battle with cancer, according to the university.

Morton studied North American ethnology at the University of Oregon, where he earned his doctorate before beginning his career at CSUN in 1972. His primary areas of expertise were the Pacific and North America, according to Antonio Gilman, acting chairman of CSUN’s anthropology department.

In 1978, following up on a 1970 National Institutes of Health-sponsored study he did in the Kingdom of Tonga, Morton served as a consultant on Tongan culture for the Peace Corps. He later researched the Tongan immigrant community of Los Angeles.

From 1978 to 1984, Morton was chairman of the anthropology department. For several years, he was also the coordinator of the American Indian Studies Program, culminating in an article he co-wrote on California’s Chumash.

“Our department is a small department, and Keith Morton played a very important part in it,” said Gilman. “He was a good scholar, a good teacher . . . the product of him being a very good human being.”

Morton is survived by his wife of 33 years, Vicki of West Hills; a son, Josh Morton of West Hills; a daughter, Andrea Leggat of Ann Arbor, Mich.; his mother, Agnes Morton; two sisters, Doris McAlister and Sue Daily; and a brother, Joe Gamblin. His mother and siblings live in Oregon.

Funeral services will be held in Lebanon, Ore., on Sept. 12. A “celebration of life” memorial service will be held on the CSUN campus in October.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Keith Morton Memorial Scholarship/CSUN Foundation, Department of Anthropology, CSU Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge 91330.