Why We Remember our Great Professors

In an era of disruption, the soul of the university remains alive in the classroom.

It was the second week of Dr. Kaplan’s graduate seminar on social psychology, mid-morning. We were in one of those sparse seminar rooms in the old Academic Building at Texas A&M University, nearly 30 years ago. Everyone else filtered in just before start time, but I always got there early. That day, I found Dr. Kaplan already there, suit and tie on as always. He was rereading an article he’d assigned us, marking it up as if he hadn’t already read it a hundred times. I took the seat immediately to his right.

He smiled and said, “I’m glad you’re early. It means you’re ready to wrestle with the material.” No performance or posturing. Just a quiet invitation to do the work well.

That moment stayed with me. It wasn’t just about preparation; it was about presence. In today’s Dispatch, I share lessons from Dr. Kaplan and two other professors whose example shapes how I teach and lead others: show up early, take the work seriously, and treat people with care. That’s what they modeled. It’s how I try to live.

Why great professors matter

We remember them. Not the department chairs. Not the deans. Not the executives. We remember the professors. The ones who shaped how we think, how we speak, and how we see the world. They didn’t just teach. They invited us into a way of being.

Great professors are not defined by their citation counts. They are defined by the rooms they made feel electric, the awkward students they pulled in from the margins, and the questions they left echoing. They are the quiet architects of lives that unfold with more clarity, more empathy, and more precision because of the time with them.

And in an era when higher education is under pressure, financially, politically, culturally, this truth becomes more urgent:

It is not the brand, the budget, or the building that changes students. It is the professor.

This Dispatch is a tribute to three professors who made a difference for me, how they taught, how they led, and how they shaped my life. These are the faculty I still carry with me, whose words and example surface in my thoughts almost every week. It’s a reminder that in an age of bureaucratic sprawl and disruption, the soul of the university still lives in the classroom. Great teaching is not nostalgia, it’s the blueprint.

The Teacher, Stephen Lefevre (University of Texas at Tyler)

Stephen Lefevre was my undergraduate professor at a non-selective commuter school, exactly the kind of place too many in higher education overlook. He taught a full 4-4 load, semester after semester, but somehow made time for all of us.

Here’s what I remember about Stephen Lefevre:

• He loved undergraduate teaching. He lit up in the classroom. Not because the material was easy, but because he knew how high the stakes were. Most of us were first-generation students, commuters, and working part-time jobs. Some of us were unsure if we belonged. But in his class, we didn’t just learn government; we learned how to see the world differently. He wasn’t just delivering content. He was awakening something, a sense of wonder, a hunger to understand, a sharper moral compass. For Dr. Lefevre, teaching wasn’t a job. It was his purpose.

• His lectures still echo. We all have that one class we remember vividly. For me, it was his. His lectures were masterclasses in tempo, tone, and insight. You didn’t look at the clock; you leaned in. He wove ideas and humor, data and story, into something that felt both intellectually rich and emotionally true. You walked in distracted and walked out motivated. Dr. Lefevre didn’t just inform; he made knowledge stick by making it felt. That was his gift. He made learning linger.

• He served because he believed in the mission. He never sought out titles, but when the institution needed him, he stepped up. First as department chair, then as dean, and eventually as associate vice president at CSU Channel Islands, where he helped shape the identity of a new teaching university. He didn’t see administration as advancement. He saw it as stewardship, a way to protect what mattered: student learning, faculty integrity, and a culture of care. He served with humility, curiosity, and quiet strength. When he led, the whole place got better.

Dr. Lefevre’s influence wasn’t loud, but it was deep and lasting. He didn’t publish to impress or climb administrative ladders for prestige. He showed up, semester after semester, with conviction, warmth, and a deep belief in what teaching could do. He helped shape institutions, yes, but more importantly, he shaped lives.

Stephen Lefevre passed away in 2011.

The Scholar, Stjepan Mestrovic (Texas A&M University)

Stjepan Mestrovic was the first professor I remember who was ok with us using his first name (something I prefer my students do, even undergraduates). He is a prolific writer, publishing one or even two books a year. He was the chair of my committee, my academic mentor, and I wouldn’t have finished my dissertation without him.

Here’s what I remember about Stjepan Mestrovic:

• He welcomed blue-sky thinking. In his seminars, no idea was too far out or too unfinished to be taken seriously. “What if” was a valid starting point, often the most interesting one. He created space for students to follow unconventional threads and pursue strange connections, and he did it without pretense. His openness wasn’t disorganized; it was deliberate. He modeled the kind of intellectual courage that sees curiosity as a strength, not a distraction. Under his guidance, the university felt less like a factory and more like a launchpad.

• He championed the misfit students. I wasn’t the only one in our program who didn’t quite fit the mold. Some of us were too interdisciplinary, too idealistic, or just too emotionally wired for the standard academic template. Stjepan didn’t just tolerate us; he sought us out. He made room at the table, asked real questions, and treated our half-formed ideas as worth developing. For students who walked the harder, less traditional paths, he was a mentor and a refuge.

• He taught sociology as the study of the human condition. Stjepan didn’t hide behind jargon or bury insight under research methods. He talked about Durkheim and culture in the same breath, with clarity and moral urgency. His seminars were filled with questions about grief, shame, justice, and the social emotions that hold societies together or tear them apart. For him, sociology wasn’t abstract. It was human. He taught me that our work should aim not just to explain the world, but to understand it: deeply, compassionately, and with moral purpose.

Stjepan shaped not just my dissertation, but my entire approach to thinking, teaching, leading, and being human. He gave me permission to be curious, to be unfinished, to follow the questions that didn’t have easy answers. His mentorship wasn’t about conformity; it was about becoming more fully yourself. I carry that with me still.

The Intellectual Giant, Howard Kaplan (Texas A&M University)

Howard Kaplan was a Regents and Distinguished Professor of Sociology, and he looked it: always in a suit, always composed. When he did teach, it was only one graduate seminar a year, and I was lucky enough to take two of them. His impact on medical sociology, deviance, and social psychology spanned five decades, marked by major journal editorships, prolific scholarship, and the field’s highest honors.

Here’s what I remember about Howard Kaplan:

• He carried his brilliance with grace. Dr. Kaplan was one of the most accomplished scholars I’ve ever met, but you wouldn’t have known it from how he treated students. He never dominated the room, never made you feel small. He listened. He asked what you thought and waited for a real answer. In his seminar, there was no posturing, just serious thinking done in good faith. He brought gravity to the room, yes, but also kindness. That combination was rare.

• He used his success to show us the way. Kaplan had every credential a sociologist could want, endowed chair, editorships, national awards, but he never made those things feel distant. He broke them down. He showed us how to publish, how to navigate peer review, how to deal with rejection without letting it define you. He took the mystery out of it. He made success feel less like a gate and more like a path you could walk. If you were willing to do the work, he would be there to help.

• He made excellence teachable. Some professors are so brilliant you can’t quite figure out how they got there. Dr. Kaplan was brilliant, but he also had a system. He would lay out the logic of a theory, the design for a research study and analysis, the structure of an argument, the rhythm of good writing, all in ways you could actually learn from. He didn’t just perform excellence; he taught it. Being in his seminar didn’t just raise your standards. It gave you the tools to reach them.

What I remember the most wasn’t just his intellect; it was his gentleness. Dr. Kaplan held himself to the highest standards and lived them out quietly, with discipline and grace. He was usually one of the first in the building and the last to leave, steady in his presence and generous with his time. In the two seminars I took with him, I always made a point to sit to his right. I wanted to learn as much as I could, as closely as I could. The two A’s I earned from him remain among my proudest moments in graduate school, not just because of the grade, but because they came from a man who never gave anything away lightly, and never withheld kindness along the way.

Howard Kaplan passed away in 2011.

The final word

Everything I value about teaching, mentorship, and scholarship traces back to these three individuals. My style in the classroom, my belief in others who don’t yet believe in themselves, my conviction that intellectual work should be both rigorous and humane, all of it was formed in their presence. From Stephen Lefevre, I learned that care and clarity can change a life. From Stjepan Mestrovic, that curiosity and moral seriousness belong at the center of academic inquiry. From Howard Kaplan, that brilliance means little without humility and the discipline to pass it on. I don’t teach like them because I’m trying to imitate them. I engage like them because they shaped who I am. Their examples are not just memories. They are foundations.