I SPENT MY EARLY YEARS AT WABASH following Melissa Butler around.
I co-taught the Intro to Political Theory class with her during my first semester, and we co-advised her Fall 2010 freshman tutorial. (Understand that “co-advising” meant that she actually advised the guys and I only made the occasional interjection.) I followed her lead at receptions, events, and games as she introduced me to Trustees, board members of the National Association of Wabash Men, retired members of the Wabash community, and numerous alums.
A lot of people in the Wabash community came away with a positive impression of me because of Melissa’s skill in setting up situations so that I could impress them: Once a number of Trustees were scheduled to sit in on the Intro to Political Theory class. I was terrified. She suggested that we take turns teaching the hour, which was not our normal procedure. She started off and told jokes about and with the visiting Trustees and had everyone in a fantastic mood. With about 20 minutes left, she tossed the reins to me and let me give a really energetic lecture on something that I knew really well. Some of the Trustees who were there still comment positively on how much they enjoyed that class.
I QUICKLY REALIZED THAT MELISSA was amazing with first-year students. Since I have always clicked better with upperclassmen and didn’t have much experience teaching freshmen, I made it my business to observe her very carefully. I remember the dinner at her house during Freshman Weekend: While I had a few sports-related conversations laden with the standard Freshman Weekend awkwardness, she was able to weave together statements of genuine warmth, encouragement, and comfort with gentle teasing that helped the students bond while creating and establishing expectations for what it meant to be at Wabash. That remains one of the more impressive teaching displays I’ve ever seen. She was superb at balancing the students’ (unstated) desire for an authority figure with clear expectations who would stop them from screwing up too badly and the students’ (stated) desire to take advantage of their new college freedom.
What I did not so quickly realize was that Melissa was equally good with first-year faculty. She perceived the type of mentoring that was best for me. She respected my desire to exercise my new freedom as a faculty member, but by allowing me to do things with her—which allowed her to observe me in turn—she was able to give me suggestions for improvement that prevented me from screwing up too badly and getting off on the wrong foot.
Melissa and I have a lot in common, but she is much more innovative. (Much to her dismay, I still insist on hand writing comments on hard copies; she has been using computers to grade for ages.) Her work at Wabash has been revolutionary. I am more cautious by nature, and she picked up on this quickly and has always known when I needed a push. She pushed me to move away from my dissertation and toward my interest in Machiavelli and Italy right away. All the students who have benefitted from traveling to Italy with me—whether as students in my immersion course or as research assistants—have Melissa to thank.
The lessons learned on those Italian adventures have made me a better teacher, researcher, advisor, and colleague. Chief among those lessons was that I needed to loosen up and not be so nervous about going in new directions. As Melissa’s “replacement” (to be honest, I hate this phrasing—as I’ve said, you don’t replace a towering figure like Melissa Butler) I often get asked if I will change the way she taught PSC 231 or Senior Seminar. How will I remember her legacy?
I’ve thought a lot about those questions. My years at Wabash have been filled with nothing but warmth and welcome from students and alumni, and I know that it is because of the work of Melissa and others—women who were not always received with warmth and welcome—that I was able to come to a campus of Wabash men happy to embrace me and make me part of their community.
I am profoundly grateful, but I’ve never quite found the way to thank Melissa. I hope to do so by making sure that political theory at Wabash is taught in a way that maintains respect for the classics, but also acknowledges the need for new directions and the occasional revolution.
But I think we can all honor her legacy by being sensitive to the needs of everyone in the Wabash community, especially our newest members, and by pushing each other to innovate, to evolve, to experience our own mini-revolutions, to always fight, and to never, ever just settle for what has always been solely because it has always been.
—Alexandra Hoerl, Assistant Professor of Political Science