Thirty years ago I was asked by Gordon Ambach, Commissioner of Education for the state of New York, to become a member of a Board of Overseers to assist the Regents in their oversight of Regents External Degree Program, a college which was founded by the Board of Regents in 1971. The members of the Board of Overseers consisted of educators and other professionals from around the United States.
At our first meeting in July 1985, I met Harold “Bud” Hodgkinson for the first time. Those of us who did not know Bud quickly learned that he was the guru who was constantly analyzing demographic trends and how they affected education at all levels.
His contributions to the work of the board over the years and through its transitions to an independent private college chartered by the state Board of Regents was stellar. The new college took on its present name from the state motto and became Excelsior College.
In many ways, Bud was much like a highly talented professor conducting a continuous postdoctoral seminar in which he constantly raised the issues of how the changing demographics of the nation and the world would affect the work of education. Always having at hand his handwritten visuals containing a cornucopia of data, he would use an overhead projector and then launch into his masterful explanations of complicated data to explain to the board how the populations of the world were changing and affecting their environment.
He always was able to use colorful examples to illustrate what he was trying to teach us. At every meeting I learned something from Bud that I could take back to my own work.
Moreover, I was able to entice Bud to come to New York University to lecture my master’s and doctoral students in higher education administration. When he spoke, other faculty members and their classes joined in the audience to understand what he had to teach. For someone who generally was rather quiet and far from flamboyant, Bud always had his audience spellbound.
Finally, having the privilege of knowing Bud Hodgkinson as a colleague and as a friend whose work made me a better college administrator and professor has enriched me.
