Things I wouldn't have known...

One of my favorite college professors passed away this past weekend. I felt a little crappy considering that, on Monday before I learned of this, I spent a very large chunk of time waxing about how great my life is and how awesome my birthday was when at the very same moment many wonderful people were grieving. Many wonderful people were trying to make sense of something so heavy and unfair. In short, I finished my blog entry, and then surfed around to the other blogs I regularly read, and then I felt like a total jackass.

I only had a couple of classes with Dr. Kelly F. Lowe, but those were some of the best classes I ever had. My main experience of working with him was as a tutor in his well-crafted writing center. I learned a lot working there; not only about working with people, but about writing and about how to make people's writing--including my own--better. Kelly's focus was not on having writing tutors who simply understood grammar and would look at other students' papers and "fix" them. He wanted us to sit down with the students; to actually read the papers and to get them to tell us what they were trying to say. He wanted us to listen, and then to work with the students to help them formulate their writing. As extensions of Kelly, we all tried to help our fellow students become BETTER writers by working WITH them, not talking down TO them.

And, to me, that was Kelly-the-instructor in the briefest of nutshells.


I'm not going to attempt to wax rhapsodic about Kelly's life, as I don't personally feel qualified. Also, I think two of my former college colleagues who were much, much closer to him have done so infinitely much better than I ever could. Thanks, Steve and Athena.

All I really feel qualified--and able--to do to remember Kelly appropriately right now is to give you the list of things I wouldn't have known (about writing, about life, about myself) if I hadn't ever met Dr. Kelly F. Lowe.

• That a heterosexual grown man with a traditionally female name CAN wear pink socks with any outfit, be totally cool with it, not give a fuck what other people think about it, and totally pull it off.


• That no matter how good you think you are at something, you can always get better if you're willing to listen and to try.


• That having an encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture can actually be a useful thing. Countless were the nights in the WC where I would try to be smooth and drop casual pop-culture references into conversations--a practice I still do today, much to the lamenting of my wife--only to have my shit completely blown out of the water.


• That you shouldn't be afraid to make an argument or take a stand. But, if you do so, you HAVE to do your homework, do your research, know what the hell you're talking about, and argue it effectively.


• That Hunter S. Thompson was a bad-ass motherfucker.


• That the professor/student (or boss/employee, if you prefer) relationship truly can be collegial.


• That brevity in writing is the most effective method of being funny. "Get in, make your joke, and get out." I still haven't mastered this one, as you can tell if you read my blog regularly.


• That it's OK to have a beer at BW3's with your former professor/employer when you come back to visit your alma mater. In fact, it should be encouraged.


• And lastly--and I'm going to fumble this one, so bear with me--that college, and more specifically life, shouldn't be about accomplishments. It should be about people, and about making the places you're in better when you leave than they were when you found them.

I could have made my way through school as a Lit major without really ever having worked at being a better writer. And, had I never started working at the Writing Center (and then, by extension, started taking classes with KLowe--much too late in my career, I might add), this would have been my experience. I was well-versed enough in the old "5 paragraph essay" and expository methods from HS that I got my scholarship, got into EH120W as a freshman, and could have written all of my papers and gotten through.

But I wouldn't have really learned anything about writing, and about how to make my writing better. I read the blogs and writings of some of my colleagues from back in those college years, and I know that I still have a long way to go. But I know I probably wouldn't be writing at all anymore if I hadn't worked with Dr. Lowe.

And that's the greatest eulogy I can give the man.

Cheers, Kelly. Cheers.