James Willis Davis

Presidential scholar James Willis Davis died on August 13, 2002, at the age of 82. Jim Davis served his country, his students, the profession of political science, and three universities with energy, commitment, and distinction.

He was born of a generation that witnessed the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Rather than let these calamities dispirit him, he devoted his life to the service of education and government as a means of encouraging all Americans to, in his phrase, “take bigger strides.”

Initially a high school teacher, he worked his way to a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota and then served for seven years in the CIA which took him to the Far East. He returned to become a professor in political science at St. Cloud University in 1959. He later was professor and chair of political science at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.

From Michigan, he came in 1974 to Western Washington University in Bellingham as Dean of Arts and Sciences and professor of political science. While at Western, he saw the College of Arts and Sciences through one of the most difficult decades in its history. The College survived a long financial crisis and is today the core college of one of the most highly rated public comprehensive universities in the country.

When he came back to full-time teaching in 1984, he resumed his scholarly career as a prolific author—a career that was, if anything, accelerated by his move to emeritus status in 1989. Jim's 12 books examined the presidency, and particularly the selection process, in thoughtful detail. As a renowned scholar on the presidency, his commentary was sought by national media during presidential elections, as well as the 1999 crisis in the Clinton presidency. His final book, Leadership Selection in Six Western Democracies (Greenwood, 1998) placed the presidency in a comparative perspective and sought to draw lessons for the enhancement of democracy.

Ever the political activist, Jim served as a delegate to the 1972 National Democratic Convention and a delegate to the Electoral College in 1992. He was an inveterate participant in local Democratic activities. If he ever came close to disillusionment with American politics, it was with the 2000 Presidential election and the events that followed.

He served his community most notably as a partisan of public radio. He was the indispensable resource in the founding of a local public radio station. His advocacy of public radio earned him the Mayor's Arts Award in 1994.

Jim Davis is survived by his wife, sociologist Nanette Davis and a large and loving family. His extensive collection of books remains in the Western Washington University library, as does the memory for his colleagues of a man of spirit, wit, and keen insight.

Memorials may be sent to the James W. Davis Political Science Memorial Library Fund at The Western Foundation, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225.

Ken Hoover Western Washington University -with information supplied by Susan Davis-Browne and John F. Browne

Henry Drucker

Henry Matthew Drucker, political scientist, analyst, professor, and fund raiser died October 30th of a heart attack at the age of 60.

Drucker was born in Paterson, New Jersey but moved to Britain in 1964 where he completed his Ph.D. in political philosophy at the London School of Economics in 1967. Drucker was immediately hired by Edinburgh University. He spent 20 years as an energetic lecturer, and was renowned for his ability to teach the most complex issues in a simple and engaging way. Drucker often used contemporary events and historical context to help students connect with abstract political science concepts.

While at Edinburgh, Drucker authored several seminal works, among these were Developments in British Politics (1983), which became required reading for all political students, and The Politics of Nationalism and Devolution (1980), coauthored with Gordon Brown. He and his wife, Nancy, also edited the highly influential Scottish Government Year Book . Drucker's passion for Scottish politics could not be expressed by his publications alone. He became the BBC's leading commentator on Scottish politics, and became a regular on BBC's coverage of election nights.

In 1987 Drucker left Edinburgh for the newly created position of Director of Development at Oxford University. Drucker was a long-time advocate of universities raising money independently rather than relying on an impoverished centrally controlled budget. Drucker was presented with a daunting task: raise £220 million in seven years. One college head, perhaps knowledgeable of the challenges Drucker faced—his lack of Oxbridge connections and Oxford's lack of alumni magazine, benefactors, and volunteers—quipped: “If you don't raise the money we'll fire you: if you do raise it, we'll say we'd have done it anyway.”

To say that Drucker surpassed all possible expectations would be a dramatic understatement. By 1994, Drucker had revolutionized the university's archaic fund-raising apparatus. Oxford now had a league of benefactors and up-to-date, professional staff in Oxford, New York, and Tokyo. The £341 million pounds Drucker raised at campaign's close funded many of Oxford University's most highly acclaimed additions, including the Said Business School, the Sheldonian Theatre, and the Sackler wing at the Ashmolean Museum.

In 1994, Drucker left Oxford to found his own consultancy firm to help non-profits, universities, and charities fundraise large sums. In 1996, Drucker had a falling out with the Labour party, who he had been a stalwart supporter of since the late 1970s, when they ignored his fundraising advise, advise that would have served the party well during later fundraising scandals.

Drucker had suffered for many years of various heart-related maladies, all of which failed to curb his enthusiasm and work ethic for raising money for good causes. Whether it was fundraising, lecturing, or live, on-camera political analysis, Drucker will be remembered for his warmth and caring.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy.

Compiled from The Guardian, 11/7/02 obituary by Nick Thorn, and The Scottsman, 11/8/02, obituary by Alasdair Steven.

Ralph Gordon Hoxie

Ralph Gordon Hoxie, cofounder of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and the Library of Presidential Papers, and publisher of Presidential Studies Quarterly , died at the age of 83 on October 23rd.

Hoxie was born on March 18, 1919 in Waterloo, Iowa. He received his Bachelor's from the Iowa State Teachers College in 1940 before earning graduate degrees from the University of Virginia and Columbia University. He served in the Army Air Forces during World War II. He spent years after the war as an active reserve officer where he rose to the rank of brigadier general. After the war, Hoxie continued an academic career by accepting the position of dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Long Island University in 1954. He was chosen as chancellor in 1964, a choice that later promoted Hoxie to national fame later that decade.

In March 1967, a dispute that had raged behind closed doors between Chancellor Hoxie and provost William M. Birenbaum flood into the public eye when Hoxie found himself surrounded by 1,500 protesting students at the university's Brooklyn campus. The students, who were eventually pulled off of Hoxie by campus police after tearing his coat and allegedly hitting and kicking him, were protesting Hoxie's insistence of Birenbaum's resignation. Birenbaum adamantly railed against student tuition increases, while Hoxie insisted that the increases were the best way to deal with the university's spiraling debt. Birenbaum also supported higher faculty salaries and new university buildings, in addition to abolishing the student dress code and allowing male students to have facial hair. The faculty had voted to keep Birenbaum 145 to 38, but Hoxie demanded, and received, Birenbaum's resignation. Following the incident the university's trustees asked for and received Hoxie's resignation. It was at this time that Hoxie went and co-founded the Center for the Study of the Presidency.

Hoxie is survived by his second wife, Ada Hoxie.

Compiled from news sources

Bernard Kolasa

Bernard (Bernie) Kolasa's thirty-four year career in the political science department of the University of Nebraska, Omaha ended with his sudden and untimely death on September 30, 2002. A specialist in the politics of Nebraska and its unicameral legislature, Bernie devoted himself to his students, his University, his ethnic heritage, and his community, serving all with intensity leavened with keen wit, and undaunted in his insistence on fairness.

Bernie earned his B.A. degree in 1960 at Cannon College in Erie, PA, and his advanced degrees at University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE. He came to the University of Nebraska as one of the first Fellows under the National Defense Education Act. Work on his Ph.D., interrupted by service as a captain in the United States Army because of a call-up of reservists, was completed in 1969. The legislative process of Nebraska's unique unicameral legislature was his dissertation topic, and it remains a stellar study of the institution.

Bernie believed his primary job was to teach, and teach he did as generations of his students attest. While colleagues taught reduced hours to secure a partial research workload, Bernie kept his full-time teaching schedule. Pressures for research production as a necessity for advancement failed to distract him from the classroom. Nonetheless, he was a frequent contributor to State Legislative Developments , and presented numerous papers at professional conferences. For several years he served as the coordinator of UNO's annual European Studies Conference, in contact with a nation-wide network of Europeanists, and several in other countries.

Vying for promotion was not an important factor in his professional life, and he considered what he did as more significant than at what rank he did it. Only late in his career did he agree, at the urging of a colleague, to submit himself for consideration to promotion to full professor. On the strength of his teaching contributions, supported by an extraordinary service record, he advanced with ease from associate to full professor. He served on key peer-elected Committees in the College of Arts and Science, and was one of the founders of UNO's chapter of AAUP, serving two terms as its president. Colleagues trusted him to represent their interests with unswerving vigor and were not disappointed. His files were filled with copies of letters he wrote bombarding administrative officers when he thought faculty rights were being infringed. But his adversarial positions were always professional not contentious, and rarely did he emerge from a struggle at any level without having won respect rather than enmity.

He believed that a political scientist has an obligation to engage in the political process, and for years he was an activist in political party activities. Educational issues particularly impelled him to public service, and three times he won election to the Omaha Public School Board, serving as its president in 1995. January 2003 was his announced date for leaving the School Board he had served for twelve years. County government attracted his attention, and he had served since 1991 on the Douglas County Reorganization Committee studying school district merger questions.

Comments on Bernie's life would be incomplete without paying homage to his pride in his ethnic heritage. Active in Omaha's Polish community, he was a president of Omaha's Polish Home, Inc., organized Polish exhibits for the city's ethnic festival, and conducted several community service programs on Polish society and culture. Overseas experience in Poland abetted his efforts at home, having spent one year in Warsaw on a leave from the University to serve as field director of a Year Abroad program in Krakow, Poland, and another as a Fulbright Lecturer in Warsaw. Sensitive to all ethnic groups, Bernie had developed a course on Minorities Politics long before ethnic studies became familiar on our campuses. The plural title “Minorities” was used because his course examined a range of minority groups.

Bernard Kolasa's epitaph can read: “He taught, he served, he was respected.”

Eugene J. Meehan

Eugene J. Meehan, curators' professor emeritus of political science and public policy administration at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, died of pneumonia October 8 in Orange City, Florida after a long illness. Professor Meehan joined the UM, St. Louis faculty in 1970 as professor of political science and staff urban planner in the Center for Metropolitan Studies. He received the University of Missouri's Weldon Spring Presidential Award for Research and Creativity 1986. He was made a curators' professor in 1987 and retired in 1992.

I first met Gene Meehan over a large bowl of shrimp at a party thrown by Dorsey Press for its authors, back when publishers gave such parties. Dorsey had just published my first book (years later I learned that Gene had been Dorsey's reader for it) and was part way through publishing five of Gene's. Somehow, standing there until the shrimp had disappeared, Gene and I became lifelong friends. Gene did not suffer fools gladly, but once he accepted you, he would take immense pains to help you clarify your thought and writing. He loved to argue, and he could be impatient if you were slow to understand his point, but he was the best critic I've ever met. If he found a serious flaw in your work, he would point it out forcefully, but then he would go to great length to help you find a way of overcoming it. He generally refused to referee anonymously because he thought no one should be able to hide behind anonymity but should be willing to put their name to whatever they said. As a result, he sometimes developed long-term relationships with scholars whose work he had initially read in the refereeing process.

Gene was born in Peckville, Pennsylvania in 1923 and joined the Army shortly after graduating high school. He served as a fighter pilot in World War II, rising to the rank of captain, and flew 88 combat missions, 50 of them as squadron and group leader. Among other awards, he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.

After his military service, Gene earned bachelor's and master's degrees in political science at the Ohio State University and a doctorate in political science at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1954 working under Michael Oakeshott. After receiving his degree from the LSE, he served as education director for the U.S. Air Force in London and education specialist at the U.S. Armed Forces Institute in Madison, Wisconsin. He joined the faculty of Rutgers University in 1958. This was followed by appointments at Brandeis University and the University of Illinois before he joined UM, St. Louis. While at UM, St. Louis, he served as a fellow or visiting scholar at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, the Swedish Institute of Göteborg University, and the University of South Africa.

Gene published 27 books together with numerous reports and articles. Many of his books and articles were also published in Dutch, German, and Spanish. He made his initial impact of the field with Theory and Method of Political Analysis (1965), which he followed with a series of books clarifying what he argued was the purpose of scholarship in the social sciences, knowledge that could be used to improve the human condition, and explaining how this knowledge could be developed.

Gene took his own advice and for years consulted with school systems, universities, and governments throughout the world on ways to improve the education of everyone from elementary school students to civil servants. Toward this end, for six years he traveled to various countries in Central and South America to help develop programs designed to train government officials; later he consulted with groups in Israel, Slovenia, and South Africa on how to improve university education in those countries. His book The Thinking Game: A Guide to Effective Study (1988) is widely used in English and German versions to assist students in learning.

For six years, Gene spent a number of afternoons each week working with elementary school children in a local school district. When their test scores doubled, I suggested that he should be recognized for this work. He refused, saying that it would detract from the work of the teachers, who spent many more hours working with the children that he did and deserved recognition more than he did. This is the first time those six years have been publicly noted.

He also applied his principles within his own research, publishing two volumes on public housing, a critique of the use of economic theory in policy making, and a volume on Ethics for Policy Making (1990). His last books were Assessing Governmental Performance (1993) and Social Inquiry Needs, Possibilities, Limits (1994) which combined his continuing interest in social theory with his desire to make such theory useful to others.

He epitomized the life of the mind; he was first, foremost, and always, a scholar, which he thought of as a high calling, albeit one that should produce useful knowledge. He also loved to travel, and he loved good food and wine, particularly if he could find a bargain. I spent many evenings with Gene and his wife, Alice, eating Gene's cooking, drinking his wine, and discussing politics and the arts. Gene's other great love was music, and the Meehan's had an incredible, and well-used, record collection.

Gene is survived by his wife, Alice, and his sister, Naiomi Gardner of Elmira, NY.

Lyman Tower Sargent University of Missouri, St. Louis

Ross B. Talbot

Ross B. Talbot, professor emeritus of political science at Iowa State University, passed away on September 30, 2002 after a brief illness. He was 82 years old. Ross was a native of Long Point, Illinois and received his B.A. from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1941, and his M.A. and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1949 and 1957, respectively. He began his career at the University of North Dakota and taught for a year at Columbia University before coming to Iowa State University in 1957. His nominal retirement occurred in 1989, but he continued to teach on a part-time basis through the 2002 spring semester.

Ross Talbot was an extraordinary scholar and teacher, a much beloved colleague, and a wonderful human being. While Ross had a broad array of academic interests, his primary areas of research and teaching were agricultural politics and policy and political theory. Along with our late colleague, Don Hadwiger, Ross made seminal contributions with his books The Policy Process in American Agriculture and Pressure and Protests: The Kennedy Farm Program and the Wheat Referendum of 1963. These works are “must reads” for students in this field. He also expanded his work on agricultural policy with studies of the European Community (The Chicken War: An International Trade Conflict between the United States and the European Economic Community and The European Community's Regional Fund: A Study in the Politics of Redistribution ) and with several edited studies and articles on world food problems. Ross was a productive scholar whose work left a lasting mark on our disciple an on generations of students at Iowa State University.

He was also a dedicated teacher. While some of his teaching focused on agricultural policy and world food issues, Ross had an abiding interest in, and a dedication to, political theory. For more than a generation, he was the department's principal theorist, teaching the introductory course in that area in addition to an advanced theory course. He taught generations of students about Aristotle and Plato, the Federalist Papers, and even Milton Friedman. A particular love for Ross was the teaching of American constitutional principles. In all of these efforts, he was an engaging teacher who was highly respected and admired by his students for his command of so many topics.

Ross was also an outstanding leader and colleague. As first chair of a combined department (history, government, and philosophy) from 1966–1969 and then as the first chair of the separate department of political science from 1969–1973, he set the standards for several generations of faculty members in our department. Although the department has evolved since his tenure, we would not have been able to do so without the wisdom and guidance that he provided as that first chair, and so often afterwards. Beyond the formal leadership that Ross provided, it was in fact the informal leadership within our department that left such a lasting imprint. The ethos—the character, the values— which he embraced, and shared, within the department was so important to us all. In addition, his personal work and service ethics remained models for us as well. He was a tireless contributor for the common good of the department and for the common good of others. Indeed, he always thought of others, and he encouraged and supported them to his very last days in our department.

For all these achievements and many more, Ross was rightly selected for the University's Outstanding Research Award at the time of his nominal retirement in 1989. At that time, too, the department proudly named a room after him—The Ross B. Talbot Faculty-Staff Lounge— and established the Ross Talbot Award in Political Science. The Talbot Lounge, located on the fifth floor of Ross Hall, gets constant use for scholarly meetings, a fact we believe Ross would be proud of. The Ross Talbot Award is given to the outstanding graduating senior within the department—and rightly so with Ross's constant emphasis on academic achievement.

Finally, Ross Talbot was a wonderful human being. What one colleague said after hearing of his passing best summarizes what Ross was: “A true gentleman and a warm and caring human being. There have always been too few …” Ross was surely that and more. Ross loved baseball, loved the Cubs, loved to pitch in our departmental softball games, and would have been a great pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals if he had only signed that minor league contract that was offered to him so many years ago. Instead, he decided to go to graduate school to study political science, and the department at Iowa State was the better for it. We are all the better for it.

Ross B. Talbot will be dearly missed, but he will never be forgotten because of the values, the spirit, and the human decency that he brought to everything he did and to everyone that he met.

James M. McCormick, Matthew Potoski, Matthias Kaelberer, Jorgen Rasmussen, Richard Mansbach, Steffen Schmidt, and Joel Moses Iowa State University

Ruth Cowart Wright

Ruth Cowart Wright, professor emeritus of political science at Texas Tech University, died suddenly on September 26, 2002. Ruth retired from teaching in 1983 and had led a most active life in retirement.

Ruth Cowart was born January 26, 1929, in Lubbock, Texas. She graduated from Lubbock High School and received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from Texas Tech and a doctorate from American University. She married Elmer Wright on December 21, 1964. He preceded her in death in 1998.

After some years of teaching in the public schools of Slaton and Lubbock, Ruth received her doctorate and joined the political science department faculty of her alma mater in 1957, where she taught until her retirement. She was a pioneer woman in political science and on the social science faculty at Tech.

Ruth was a very popular faculty member, who taught, as was the custom in the 1950s and 1960s, almost every course in the American politics curriculum. She received the Omicron Delta Kappa faculty recognition award from the student body in 1981. Ruth also was very active in professional associations, including Pi Sigma Alpha, Sigma Delta Pi, Delta Delta Delta, and the American Political Science Association. She served as vice president of the Association of Arid and Semi-Arid Lands Studies in 1980.

Ruth authored numerous articles in the field of American government and was co-author with the late J. William Davis of an early text on Texas government and politics.

In retirement, Ruth was a member of the Lubbock Club and the Lubbock Country Club, where she was active in both the Women's Tennis Association and the Women's Golf Association. She leaves no survivors, but many friends who will miss her keen observations on life, her wit and good humor, and her fine company.

Clarke E. Cochran Texas Tech University