“One of the things I did with Bob we had a so-called honors section in the beginning class and we would go over student lists of those who signed up in selecting them. That’s how I realized how un-elitist Bob really was. There was a strong emphasis on diversity, a term used much more now widely than it was then, but not just racial diversity, diversity of experience. So he wouldn’t just pick the people with the highest ranks in class. He would go after other students and one thing I recall is that he wanted to have some athletes in there. This is a stereotype and some of the athletes may be offended, but on the whole they were less intellectually engaged. He always insisted that he wanted a few athletes in there. If the athletes were not the best students, well they needed to be in there anyway because we needed that diversity. Every student’s view was taken seriously.

–David Booth,
Former Political Science Professor