Bob Hawkinson

My good grades at Willamette came in math, not political science. And I was not one of the lucky ones from the Class of 88, who had Bob Hawkinson for American Politics (only long after did I learn from Bob about the right-leaning tendencies of Roger Karz). Come to think of it, in both the American Ideas class, and the de Tocqueville Seminar I took from Bob, my GPA went down, not up. But that didn't change the fact that when it came time to talk about law schools, I had to talk to Bob Hawkinson. And when we confronted what I now know to be the picaune issues involved in student government, he was a willing ear and a ready ally. For the many years I spent on Willamette's Alumni Board and several years on the Board of Trustees, the sight of no one else at Willamette brought a smile to my face as readily as the sight of Bob Hawkinson.

Bob was serious. But he was fun. He was genuine. He was focused. He was willing to engage at all levels of discourse – Plato? He's there. Kicker? No problem. FDR? Tammany Hall? He's in heaven.

 

So at about the 20-years-past-graduation point, we (well really, Eric and Rebecca Friedenwald-Fishman) invited Bob for dinner. It was a nice summer evening, with gorgeous light streaming through the Dutch Elms and Maples. Having a drink on the porch, we heard what seemed like an unusual protest din. Perhaps a Critical Mass ride up Hawthorne? No ... too constant. Maybe something downtown, where the sounds drift east? No, it was clearly too close for that. So the three of us ventured forth, up to Hawthorne Boulevard – Bob joining us in our venture. Lo and behold, a kind of picket line. Not a Chicago picket line, mind you, but a Portland picket line – how dare Sel Gris serve Foie Gras!?! Mon Dieu! Given that it was a local restaurant, an awesome local restaurant, we couldn't resist, picket line be damned. The slurs and slander that accompanied our entrance were soon forgotten, as the chef sent us a bottle of champagne, after we explained that if those idiots were going to protest, we were going to respond. With champagne under our belts (and perhaps another drink), we left, again to the deafening jeers of the crowd outside (the police officer said I should perhaps move along, instead of confronting the slacker who screamed about his desire for my death ...huh?).  How could one script a better Bob Hawkinson moment?  The protest, the message, the response?  It was politics personalized; it was experiencing the tumult.

 

Several hours later, it turns out, after a meal strewn with hyperbole, debate and laughter, I said my last goodbye to Professor Hawkinson. I wish I could see him again.

from Juwen Zhang

====================================
Bob was one of the those senior colleagues who would make a young
faculty member feel comfortable to work with in many ways. There are
two things that I would tell now. When I was to teach a College
Colloquium course for the first time in 2006 -- my fourth year in WU, I
learned that Bob once taught Aristotle's Ethics. So I had a
conversation with him over coffee about what I had planned to teach
Confucius and Aristotle on everyday ethics and what he could advise me.
Bob not only told me how he did it and what he learned from doing it,
but also loaned me quite a few books which turned out to be very
helpful. He made me feel confident to do it with his wonderful tips.
The following conversations over the semester were equally pleasant and
helpful.

In 2009, I was organizing a summer program for a group of students from
East China University of Political Science and Law, our sister
university in China. I asked Bob to give a lecture. He did it with
serious preparation. It turned out to be one of the best lectures the
students had. (See the picture of his engaging class.) He later told
me he enjoyed it very much and wanted to do it again. Just a about a
week ago, I emailed him and asked him to do it again this July ... and I
did not get his message. Instead, I got the message about his departure ...

Bob, you will not be forgotten.


Juwen Zhang
Associate Professor of Chinese

Bob in his own words

Words of wisdom from the Dean of the Night. Bob Hawkinson in his own words. He'll be missed. 

Tommy Ziemer, class of 2002

Bob's 2009 "Retirement" Party

Reyna Meyer & Bob

Colleen, Dave & Bob

Nikki, Cassie & Bob

Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson

      Much has been made over the years of Bob ‘the Viking’ Hawkinson, as well as of his singular diplomatic efforts to restore the reputation of America in the eyes of carefully selected East Europeans.    I want to offer some less well-known vignettes of Bob’s exploits in the Mediterranean, and specifically of Bob the ‘method traveler.’    You may not be familiar with this concept, I wasn’t either until Dame Fortune (or Catherine Collins, same thing really) assigned me as Bob’s room-mate for the duration of the justly famous Willamette faculty development study-trip across Greece, ably organized by Catherine and Jeanne Clark and smoothed through its trying moments by a Hellenic tact that only Stasinos Stavrianeas could bring to situations.  
      ‘Method travelling’ is related to ‘going native’ except that one immerses in the mythopoetic legacy of the local.   In the case of Greece, this meant ‘going heroic.’    I trace my own belated comprehension of the real meaning of ‘heroism’ -   some things one cannot learn from books -  to that trip and to Bob.    It dawned on me slowly, as we journeyed about together, that Bob was channeling Heracles and the generations of ancient Greek heroes raised on his example.
      
      As a result of the careful planning of our itinerary, we visited many astonishing monumental and archaelogical sites, arriving usually close to mid-day for best viewing under full sun.    At every battle-field we visited, while the rest of us were content merely to seek shade and scan our surroundings, Bob Hawkinson, moved by the pathos of waves of fallen heroic warriors, would emulate them and fall, ideally on his knees and with arms flailing.    If, in the process of plummeting, a water bottle or camera could be cast against rocks, and fortunately there were lots of rocks where Bob elected to fall, all the better.  
      At the battle-fields of greater gravitas, Bob fell more heavily, or twice, or preceded by a running trip.    At Thermopylae, he fell repeatedly, sacrificing himself bravely for the sake of his one-man historical re-enactment.    It was as if he was willing his body to become, as Reconciliation was in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, an embodied site upon which the Athenians and Spartans could work out their differences and have their respective way.   One senses that after Bob’s visits countless ghosts could finally depart honored and contented.
      Since we are no longer sure where all ancient battles occurred but we know that the ancients warriored about a lot, at some historical sites Bob fell just in case, spontaneously and silently  yet always heroically.    He fell like that at the grave-yard of ancient Athens, the Kerameikos, amid the abundant pottery shards, because it was the right thing to do.
      
      At some point all of us arrived individually at the unspoken realization that Bob was participating in our trip not primarily to learn about the ancient Greeks, as the rest of us were selfishly, but much more profoundly and self-effacingly as a pilgrim to complete the Twelve Labors of Heracles.    It would take too much space to recount the remarkable manner in which Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson ‘nailed’ each of them, as the kids say these days.    I can only briefly marvel at 2 or 3 of the labors, and trust that a better chronicler will complete the task in the future.










      The original Heracles' Ninth Labor was to obtain Hippolyta's girdle, the magical belt of the Amazon Queen.   Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson scoured the market-stalls of the Plaka in Athens for it for hours but to no avail.   Plenty of Olympiakos soccer vests but no Hippolyta's girdle.    None of the women that Bob approached and asked to show him Hippolyta's girdle proved helpful either.  In fact they retreated in embarrassment.     It is sad, Bob noted later, when a society loses familiarity with its own traditional knowledge.    He had to settle instead, demonstrating Aristotelian magnanimity, for spending great sums on a trove of authentic plastic replicas of ancient artifacts and objet d’art.  
      On one such shopping expedition, Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson undertook to purchase an authentic, hand-unwrapped, replica of a trireme, the ancient Greek warship, crafted from the primeval metal known to metallurgists as lead.    Its high price was proof of its authenticity, Bob explained later, but since it was big and heavy, the ship had to be shipped.    Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson is still waiting for that ship to come in.  
      
      


If Athena could be birthed through Zeus’ skull and Dionysus carried to term in his thigh, perhaps the modern miracle of an Athenian market-vendor delivering on goods already paid for may yet occur.    Until recently, Bob could be seen each day at his UC third floor point of vantage scrutinizing the cargo of the Fed-Ex delivery truck for a trireme-shaped package. 






      
      
      Speaking of magnanimity, it was Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson who, having taken a shine to the ascetic rigor of all things Spartan, cautioned the rest of us against our pedantry in mocking the newly-constructed Library of Sparta, apparently financed by retired Greek-Americans, to house the collected literary and poetic works of Sparta, namely, Milo of Kroton’s Wrestling Tips, and the Telephone Directory for the Peloponnesus, both well-thumbed after all.
      
      
      
      
      The Fifth of the Twelve Labors of Heracles was to clean the Augean stables in a single day.    Two-thirds of the way through our trip, also in Sparta as it happens, Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson undertook to wash all of his clothes at once.    He didn’t patronize the local Laundromat.   ‘This is Sparta!’ he growled, and besides, ‘did the real Heracles carry a power-washer to the Augean stables?’    Who knew that Sparta would even have a working  Laundromat? thought I.    No, Bob washed everything in our hotel-room sink.    And when I say ‘everything’ I mean not only his many yellowed though (perhaps) once fetching chiton-style undergarments, but all of his khaki outerwear, yards and yards of khaki.    All of which then had to be dried overnight because we were due to take flight to our next destination on the morrow.    So much khaki, so little time.    The great damp heroic costumery was hung from a makeshift line and draped over furniture throughout our room as well as on the balcony.    Our room came to bear an uncanny resemblance to the aftermath of the carnage on the battlefields of Plataea, or at least it would have been uncanny if blood were khaki-colored.   The next morning, none of Bob’s clothes were dry.    Indeed, if anything, they had sucked humidity out of the obliging night air, and become wetter and heavier.    Again what to do?    WWHD?   What would Heracles do?    Plastic Bags!    The Greeks surely knew how to make monuments so well that millennia later every civilization has ruin-envy but, truth be told, even their finest quality garbage bags were not up to this task.  They disgorged themselves, like upset Stymphalian birds (Heracles’ Sixth Labor) in the hotel lobby, in the airport lounge, and on the tarmac.
      






      I drank a lot at night to be able to drown out Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson’s nocturnal meditative roaring (referred to in lesser men as ‘snoring’).     One particular night, as I lay waiting to be carried to the Land of Nod by Soporific the Boatman, I heard an anguished yell, a human voice and yet distorted as if it was echoing out of Hades itself.    I rushed to the bathroom door and flung it open – what I saw provokes chills even today just recalling it.    Would that I could scratch it from my mind’s eye.    The Second Labor of Heracles was to slay the Lernaean Hydra.    The lair of the Hydra was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid.    Here, before my eyes, since unfortunately there was no shower curtain, was Bob in all of his au naturel fulsomeness, sitting squarely in the bathtub in two inches of soapy water, engaged in bare-handed wrestling combat with a giant metallic snake.    Less multi-cephalic than the nine-headed Hydra; only one head actually but surely more cunning.    It was writhing demonically, hissing ferociously, and spitting what I initially took to be venom but turned out to be water.   Greek water.
      The evidence of battle was everywhere: jagged slashes of water dripped from the mirror, walls, and ceiling, and three inches of water stood on the bathroom floor.    How to help?    I tried to be Iolaus to Bob’s Heracles, but I didn’t have a burning torch handy.    It didn’t occur to either of us to just turn off the tap; although at least I had been drinking.    Instead, we wrestled jointly with, and eventually subdued, the demon hydro.
      
      




      Towards the end of our journey, on the island of Mykonos, renown for its white-washed walls and blue roofs, hedonism and raving, some of us watched in awe and admiration as Bob stretched his otherwise lithe Nordic frame to consume a noon-time feast: vast bowls of Htapothi Vrasto (Boiled Octopus) were disarmed, and Gharithes Vrastes (Boiled Shrimp) were skewered.   Tiropitakia (Cheese Pastries) were chased with Piperies Psites (Grilled Bell Peppers), and both washed down with Fava Skordalia (Yellow Split Peas with Garlic).   There followed a course of Dolmathakia Me Rizi (Stuffed Grapevine Leaves) so large that the hills around Thessaloniki are still in ecological recovery, and whenever possible, on everything a thick layer of Maidanosalata Piroski (Parsley Spread).   Aggressively eating vast quantities in one sitting wasn’t actually one of the Twelve Labors although Heracles did dine with Pholus the Centaur in his cave on the way to the Fourth Labor, slaying the Erymanthian Boar, so … close enough.    Besides, by then, none of us wanted to cramp the style of a hero on a roll, and he was paying, so we joined in instead.


      To this day, whenever I hear the word ‘hero,’ I think of Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson, kissed gently by the sun to a glowing octopus-red hue, in shorts that displayed battered knees, laden with bulging and torn plastic bags, damp khaki flapping, not defeated, never defeated, just delayed a bit by airport security. 
      
      With regards, 
      Sammy Basu
      

One of Bob’s great gifts, one he shared so freely, was his natural enthusiasm in listening, appreciating, and responding to each (and seemingly every) one of us as individuals.  It was a gift for comradeship and collegial intimacy; he was a mentor through his friendships, not in place of them.  He was so genuinely interested in our experiences and perspectives, and responded with generous, thoughtful helpings of his vast reservoir of wisdom.  I know that others feel as I did that Bob saw and savored the uniqueness of our connections with him, as much as he did the collective fellowship of the Willamette community.  It seemed that, each time Bob and I met, we ultimately had to pry ourselves apart from a rich conversation, always going over time as we uncovered fresh common interests and stumbled into new thought-provoking exchanges.  I am thinking of our annual ride up to Portland for the President’s Admissions Reception event.  After Bob swept a pile of papers and books off the passenger’s seat so I could get in, we’d start talking before he pulled out of the parking spot and, only breaking for the event itself, continue without a pause until we made it back to the Sparks lot after 10 p.m.  We’d range across topics from the recent history of our discipline, to students we knew in common, to recent trends in liberal education, to various controversies in global and U.S. politics, to the pleasures of Patrick O’Brian novels, to the odd festivals of the Czech towns in Texas, and on... 

Bob was always concerned to know my thoughts about our academic community, and would respond with his own wise counsel.  As others have pointed out, though, his favorite topic was our students.  When, in our discussions, a student came to mind whose experience illustrated some point about pedagogy, curriculum, the campus, etc., Bob’s enthusiasm would pick up a notch, and his eyes would glow, and he inevitably began telling the student’s whole life story with affection or satisfaction, ranging far beyond the original point to be illustrated, until we eventually came back around to the point we had begun with.  I am also thinking of the many afternoon or evening discussion events through the Kaneko Commons – we colleagues have all done them, together and singly.  Sometimes it was just Bob, myself, and two or three students, sharing a great conversation.  He seemed never happier than in the fellowship of such conversations.  I was happy to share them with him, too, and I miss him terribly.

Greg Felker

Professor of Politics

Pictures from 2011 Graduation

Bob approves WU politics class of 2011

Bob and Marlene Moore, Dean of CLA

Sammy Basu PhD

Associate Professor of Politics

Chair of American Ethnic Studies

Willamette University

sbasu@willamette.edu

www.willamette.edu/~sbasu

remembering Bob

I was at work about a month ago and came back to my office to find several voicemails waiting. The first message started and a voice told me that I needed to come see the Dean for academic advising immediately because he had not signed off on my classes for next
semester. I knew right away it was Bob and laughed as he was continuing a joke we had started together while I was a student, which was over 10 years ago. I spent a great deal of time with him while I was a student, but Bob was never my academic faculty advisor. Still,
every semester he would see me in the University Center and ask if he had signed off on my classes for next semester. I'd remind him he wasn't my advisor and we would laugh. Every semester, without fail, he would ask me again. I called him back and told him his message made my day. I saw him a few weeks later, for the last time. I took American politics from Bob fall semester of my sophomore year. It was an 8:00am class in Smullin B19 and he would regale us with lectures about the Federalist Papers. Later that same year, he became the first Dean of Campus Life and I became ASWU president, so our
relationship changed and we ended up seeing a lot of each other.


Becoming Dean of Campus Life was fitting role for Bob. Prior to his tenure, the position was called Vice President of Student Affairs, a far more antiseptic title. Not only was it a change for an academic to takeover this position, but Bob also sought to reshape the entire co-curricular experience for students. Becoming Dean was a capstone for the Politics professor who cared deeply about students and student life (see e.g. helping to start the Bistro). He began the new position as Dr. Pelton began his presidency and was given the chance to write from a clean slate. The magnum opus of his tenure was the
Campus Life Task Force. It was the first time in years that anyone had undertaken a wholesale examination of the way that campus life was organized.




At his core, Bob was an academic. He approached problems in a thoughtful, reasoned, measured manner. He looked to history for guidance. The task force met every week and wrestled with big issues, exchanged ideas and talked about how we do things and how we can do them better. He led our discussions by asking thought provoking questions and steering us back on course when conversation drifted too far afield. He had us travel to other universities in teams of students, faculty, and administrators to better understand the different models and best practices. He had me research and read about the history of our own residential system to better understand how we ended up where we are.


But more than the meetings and the work, my fondest memories are of the times we spent just enjoying each other's company. There were six of us on the task force who visited schools throughout New England together my senior year. I remember laughing together as we shared meals. He would have the complete attention of the entire table as he
told stories. Bob never took himself too seriously, which surely contributed to the deep affection that I and so many others felt towards him. I remember countless afternoons sitting in his office in the University Center overlooking the Mill Stream and having wide
ranging discussions, peppered with his anecdotes and references to history. We would laugh together as he would compare aspects of university politics to great historic events in American politics (and occasionally to epic Civil War battles).


Bob was a legend. The embodiment of everything that Willamette stands for. Bob taught you many things, without ever seeming overtly professorial. He made you laugh. He made you think. He was genuine and you knew he cared about you. Bob had no children, but leaves a generation of Willamette students whose time at Willamette was shaped by Bob Hawkinson. It is strange to think of Willamette without him there. I had saved his voicemail and listened to it a few times after learning about his passing. It reminded me of the good times we had together, and it reminded me how much I will miss my teacher and my friend.

Erik Van Hagen
CLA 2000