Eulogy by Dean Harry Hellenbrand

I first met Dick at Stanford. He preceded me by several years in Albert Guerard's program, Modem Thought and Literature. Albert—a brilliant but, at that time, slightly paranoid man—recoiled in horror as many of us newer graduate students followed Dick and carried the program away from Albert's troika of psychology, intellectual history, and literature to critical theory, film studies, and popular culture—all those infectious pests of post-modem critical thought.

Many years later, Dick phoned me about the dean's gig at Poly. Since my wife. Donna, threatened to eviscerate me, if I did not get us out of the land of oh-yah—Minnesota—I applied. The rest is the stuff of comedy. At last, I could work in a place where someone understood Yiddish humor. That that place was Cal Poly was itself a Yiddish joke!

Dick was the best teacher I know. I taught with him several times in his large lecture course—Values, Media, and Culture--in the Business Rotunda. He had a precise way of handling large classes. Make the matter relevant—connect, say, Pride and Prejudice to Bridgette Jones. Do not make either one an allegory of the other. Never spend more than twelve minutes on a topic, lest students—weaned on media—become glaze-eyed; force them to integrate the topical strands that the lecture weaved. Be an impresario but not a distraction. Use film, PowerPoint, Dr. Seuss hats—visual illustrations of the ideas at hand since this is the MTV generation. Entice, seduce, instruct. The Rotunda really should have a plaque—Dick in Seuss hat—to memorialize the thousands whom he delighted there. But of course, no teaching recipe could reproduce Dick. Brilliant, allusive, hilarious, he spoke and wrote lucidly and simply. That's quite a trick. But he had the even rarer talent of actually listening, deeply hearing and looking at you when you talked to him.

Also, like other bright people with high standards in the CSU, he had a well cultivated sense of the absurd because of the endless frustrations. Yet he endlessly mounted his steed, waged battle on behalf of his dear Humanities program, and always spoke his mind honestly.

To be frank, few of us make much difference in the world. Dick, however, did. I always will remember the slow walks to class with him the last time that he taught, pausing for breath and strength. He modeled perseverance, courage, dedication. Noah and Kathy, he was a mensch—a dude—who made living, learning, and laughing parts of one whole focus. I would miss him even more if I did not see him shrug and hear him chortle as I write this.