The Buzz Online

March 23rd, 2010

The November/December Farewell by Jeff Shesol '91 of Professor of Political Science Edward Beiser continues to draw fond remembrances of this giant of Brown academic history. "My best memory" of Beiser, writes Jeffrey Smith '84, "was the warm hug I received when my wife and I attended my 5th reunion with our son, then only 3 months old. Ed bought him his first Brown Bear. That was twenty years ago. I will always remember him fondly." Sharon Stern Gerstman '72 writes: "The last time I visited with him in person was Parents' Weekend in 2002. He had organized a multigenerational student party at his home for those old students who were parents of his new students. He was already quite infirm and threatening retirement, but the brain worked as perfectly as it always did, and he was charming and entertaining. My son had been a reluctant enrollee in Hard Choices his freshman year; our bargain was that he try the class once and if he decided to drop it, I would drop the issue. Within minutes of the end of that first class he called me, excited [by] the intellectual exercise he had just been through. Though Ed was already blind and could barely move, he energized the class, and especially my son. Ari's most telling comment was that he was jealous of me to have studied with Ed in 1971 before Parkinson's robbed him of so much."

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March/April 2010