Many Moments We Have, and Yet How Few

Dedicated to Professor Ronald J. Clare, Jr

How many moments we have,
and yet how few
we really get to keep.

One meeting.
Glances across the tables.
One sentence dropped gently
into the middle of all our big plans.

But Ron was different; he would say…

“What do our students need?”

Not the students.
Not those students.
Not some distant group
in a report, a spreadsheet, or a strategic plan
wearing sensible shoes and carrying learning outcomes.

No.

Our students.

The way he said it
made the room sit up straight,
like even the chairs knew
they had better act right.

Our students.

That was his compass,
his sermon,
his little wooden sign
nailed to the doorway of every decision.

And right beside it
was another phrase Ron carried
with the same steady care:

In the real world...

He wanted our students ready
not just for the test,
not just for the assignment,
not just for the clean little version of life
we sometimes place inside a syllabus
and pretend won’t get messy by Tuesday.

He wanted them ready
for what was ahead
in the real world.

The world with rent due,
bosses talking sideways,
customers changing their minds,
forms that make no sense,
meetings that should have been emails,
and opportunities that do not knock politely
so much as lean on the doorbell.

He knew education mattered
because life was coming.

And he wanted our students
to meet that life
with skill,
with judgment,
with confidence,
with kindness,
and maybe, when necessary,
a properly raised eyebrow.

That was his way.

Somehow,
he could say it with warmth,
with power,
with just enough gentle humor
to let you know
you were about to get lovingly redirected
without hurt.

He had that gift.

He could keep you on point
without pinning you down.
He could question an idea
without crushing the person
who brought it in the room.

And when I came in carrying something new,
something half-built,
a little wild,
possibly held together with hope, caffeine, and academic foolishness,
he did not swat it away.

He leaned in.

He listened.

He laughed.

Then he found the student inside it.

Then he found the real world inside it.

That was his genius.

He would ask,
How does this help them?
How does this prepare them?
How does this carry them
beyond this room,
beyond this semester,
beyond the page
and into the real world
where they will have to stand, decide, speak, work, lead, and begin again?

He explored in the office
with a warmth you could feel
before he even spoke.

A laugh ready.
A joke nearby.
A thoughtful word waiting its turn.

He was serious about the work,
but never so serious
that joy had to wait outside in the hallway.

He knew we were in this together.

Not in theory.
Not in committee language.
Not in the kind of togetherness
that shows up in mission statements
and then mysteriously misses the meeting.

He lived it.

We are here together.
We are here to make things better.
We are here for our students.
We are here to help them step forward
into the real world
with more than a grade.

With a backbone.
With a voice.
With a plan.
With a little humor,
because the real world will test you,
and sometimes you have to laugh
just to keep from giving the broken copier
more power than it deserves.

And if we forgot that,
he would remind us.

Not with thunder,
but with that steady voice,
that gracious humor,
that grounded spirit
that could turn a room back toward its purpose.

He was a mentor by example.

Not the kind who announces,
“I am mentoring now, please take notes.”

No.

He mentored by showing up.
By listening closely.
By asking the better question.
By making room for new ideas
and then gently helping them comb their hair
before sending them out into the world.

He taught me
that kindness can have a backbone.
That humor can carry wisdom.
That support can be strong enough
to change the temperature of a room.

He reminded me
that our work was never only about policies,
forms, meetings, minutes, motions,
or all the other sacred little rituals
of academic life.

It was about students.

Our students.

Students preparing
for the real world.

And now,
in the strange quiet after his leaving,
we remember.

The meetings.
The laughter.
The raised eyebrow.
The steady counsel.
The way he made “our students”
sound like a promise
we had all made together.

How many moments we have,
and yet how few.

But some moments stay.

Some voices remain
at the table.

Some people leave us
with a question
so clear,
so generous,
so full of purpose
that it becomes a path.

So when the room gets loud,
or tired,
or too full of plans
that forgot their people,

we will hear Ron.

Warm.
Clear.
Jovial.
Unshaken.

“What would our students need?”

And then, just behind it,
that second reminder,
steady as a hand on the shoulder:

“Will this prepare them
for the real world?”

And there Ron will be again,
keeping us honest,
keeping us human,
keeping us together,
and pointing us back
to the work that mattered most.

I’ll miss you my dear colleague 🙏