I've been thinking a lot about David's legacy since I received your email last month. I don't know if it's in good hands, but it is certainly alive and well in my career. It's been more than 30 years since I was at Duke, but not a week goes by without me hearing David's voice in my heading offering some bit of wisdom or wit appropriate to my situation.
Sometimes it's very specific...
• Watching the LBJ Daisy ad with a class, I inevitably remember watching that with your Media and Politics class. After the tag line in the ad, "We must love each other, or we must die," I hear you chuckle as you say, "Really? We must love each other? Couldn't we just tolerate it each other?" My students still find that funny.
• When talking to the media, I hear you reminding me to talk in sound bites. It makes it harder for them to edit your comments. That has served me well, though sometimes my sound bites get me into trouble.
Sometimes your guidance has revolutionized my teaching and even my research...
• You taught me that undergraduates could do original research. You may need to check their work, but that's faster than gathering all that data yourself.
• I had colleagues at Furman look at me like I'd lost my mind when I incorporated a requirement for original research in the research paper assignment in my First Year Writing Seminar. It has been amazing. The students get more excited about an assignment when they know they are creating knowledge and not just reporting it, and I get much more interesting papers.
• And I got my latest research project idea from those papers. The working title is "What's So Funny? Congressional Humor in an Era of Polarization and Diversity." It's still early stages, but I think it's a book. Spoiler alert: one of my early findings is that the women in Congress have achieved humor parity with the men (no more worrying about not being taken seriously if they make jokes, and they aren't afraid to use insult humor; I shall miss Marjorie Taylor Greene).
• You taught me that political science writing should be interesting and readable, even if it includes quantitative analysis. I always smile in gratitude when reviewers of my work comment on the quality of the writing. I've learned it sometimes covers methodological sins and leads to publication.
Sometimes, you proved quite prescient...
When I finished defending my dissertation, your first words to me were, "Congratulations! You're now free to practice without a license."
• My students treat my office like a counseling center with fascinating and sometimes disturbing questions about life, politics, and their place in it. I've learned to get to work early the day after election results come in and have tissues and dark chocolate handy.
• What I really didn't expect was how much family, friends, and former students still pop in for politics-related therapy.
Sometimes the lessons I learned were practical life lessons...
Although not directly your fault, you were part of my lesson on collective stupidity as you joined in that trek through the worst parts of Savannah in search of Barbecue one evening at the Southern Meeting. It resulted in us being picked up by police to get us to the restaurant so they wouldn't have to fill out the homicide reports on us. Now, every year before spring break, I warn my students about collective stupidity--the phenomenon in which otherwise intelligent and rational people do incredibly stupid things in a group. I also tell them never to follow political scientists in search of barbecue unless they know where the restaurant is. That remains one of the funniest experiences of my life.
Through all of your wisdom and lessons, you taught me how to be a mentor, something I've used with scores of students over the years. You set your expectations for your students high and assumed they would meet them (or at least that's how it appeared to me). That approach gave me confidence; it told me that I must be able to do it because you thought I could. I've seen that work with so many of my students, and it has led to some wonderful friendships and collaborations after those students finished school.
As I wrap up another semester, I just want you to know that there's another generation of students learning from all you taught me. I'm so grateful for you.
Danielle Vinson
Professor of Political Science
Furman University