Alum
Remembers David Love
To
the Editors:
David
Love was an imp with a great proud beak of nose. Did you ever see
him? You would have grinned at the sight of him: the man carried
a puggish dignity and raspy, parochial intonation that rendered
caricature moot and adversaries mute.
You might have found him huddling in the cold outside of Cox, conspiring
in the wake of a cryptically named committee meeting (EPPC, anyone?
GFPC, perhaps?) and waiting eagerly for the next. Thats how
I met him. Our first exchange was a battle, and I lost.
I spent dinner alone, fuming, plotting witty comebacks to a conversation
already concluded. Over the years, I closed the distance to two
steps behind, or perhaps he let me catch up a little. He recognized
me as an activist, and paid me the unalloyed respect of acrimony
in dispute. He also recognized me as a student, not just of books,
but of life. After every policy clash, he would secretly find me
out in a corner of Wilder, and, carefully hidden from his colleagues,
proffer advice on how best to pursue my cause.
He loved learning. He loved teaching. He loved batting an idea back
and forth like a terrier with a favored chew-toy, worrying it to
a nubbin. He loved Oberlin. And he was not, in my time, an active
professor. He was an administrator of the very best sort, the kind
that decides, with great generosity, to be the means of the academy,
and ease the path of ends.
Oberlin is filled with these folks, but theyre hard to find
they dont teach classes, dont hold office hours,
and usually toil in dim basement offices. Find them. Trust me on
this youve got something to learn from them, and they,
you. Harry Dawe was a kindly uncle to me, and taught me a good deal
about poise and service. Michelle Gross is one of the most dogged,
resourceful people Ive ever met. Chris Baymiller and Tina
Zwegat keep Oberlin a fiery place while regularly preventing it
from blowing up entirely. I wonder how many wonderful administrators
I missed out on meeting, but I can say that I was lucky enough to
know David Love. For that, Im grateful.
Find a Fussers. Give an administrator a ring. Ask them out to lunch:
they wont bite. Theyre here for a reason: they love
Oberlin. And, Id suggest, we ought to do a better job of loving
them back.
(Except the ee-vil ones: feel free to hold protests on their lawns,
preferably with papier-mache pitchforks and gratuitously obscene
chants.)
Chapin Benninghoff
OC 98
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