Earlier this week, Jeff Hummel forwarded me some sad news that he received from Lydia Ortega, former chair of the San Jose State University economics department: their former colleague Rudy Gonzalez has died. Lydia gave a moving tribute to Rudy that she has allowed me to post. I’ll add my own after hers. Here’s Lydia:
I’m writing with sad news. I just learned that Rudy passed away today [February 3]. I have no other information about cause of death or services or memorials. He was a private person. I cobbled together this email list from those I believe would have taken his Law and Economics course or his course in Public Finance/Public Choice or his History of Economics thought or Industrial Organization, even his course in Race and Gender. Rudy certainly opened minds. He was a true Renaissance scholar (someone who knows a lot about a lot as opposed to modern specialist scholars who know a lot about a little). He knew just as much about Formula 1 drivers as the School of Salamanca as he did about classic film directors. He knew what it was to fight — literally physically and strategically fight for his values. Clearly, he was one of the best political strategists I have ever met. Yet with all this physical and mental power at his command he was the epitome of a self-effacing, humble gentleman. He never made you feel like you asked a silly question; covered in chalk dust, with a can of diet coke in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other, he pointed, ‘to the door’ and you would go outside to discuss the question.
I know that he had health issues and that with his tremendous will-power he made strides that shocked his doctors. He persevered for as long as he did for the love of his life and partner for over 50 years, Silvia Gonzalez.
So why am I writing this to you? Because life races by so fast that you forget to appreciate that in this moment you are alive. Maybe you can pause to remember one thing that Rudy gave to you that made a difference. Then pass it on. Or in his memory get into a dynamic discussion. Or read a good book (the kind where you turn pages with your hand). I know that he would want you to think.
I second what Lydia said above. I first met Rudy when we hired him at the Naval Postgraduate School to teach a few courses. That was in about 1987. I have a vague recall that I sat in on a class or two to see how he taught and was very impressed. I have a strong recall that I talked to NPS students whom he had taught and was impressed with how much good economics they had retained months later.
I had Rudy give a guest lecture in 1988. I had read this policy analysis of defense spending by Bill Niskanen and expressed my strong agreement with it. Rudy was not as impressed and his comments were well enough thought out that I thought it would be good for the students to see another view. I still remember the part of his talk where he challenged Niskanen’s view that DOD was not getting much increased quality for the much higher cost of various bits of hardware.
Rudy stated (and I remember this almost word for word):
I’ll criticize his point by analogy. When I was a graduate student, I had a house. I now have a house. I ate in restaurants. I eat in restaurants. I had a car. I have a car. The difference is this. When I was a graduate student, I had a small house in a so-so area; now I have a nice house in a nice area. I ate at McDonald’s; now I eat at steak houses. I had an old beat-up car. Now I have a much nicer car.
Rudy and I both wanted George H.W. Bush to beat Michael Dukakis in the 1988 election and I remember his great analytic discussions of Dukakis’s mistakes. I don’t mean the obvious ones about his wearing a goofy helmet in an Army tank or his bloodless response to CNN’s Bernard Shaw’s question at the start of one of the debates. The thing that stands out is his pointing out that to save his campaign, which by then was going down in flames, Dukakis consented to a one-on-one interview with ABC’s Ted Koppel. I agreed that it had gone badly. “But how could Dukakis have known in advance that that was a bad move?” I asked him. “Because,” said Rudy, “Koppel is notorious for asking tough questions and not letting up. If Dukakis and Bush were there together, it might have made sense. But with just Dukakis, the only person Koppel gets to grill is Dukakis.”
I remember that Rudy was teaching in Monterey on election night and I invited him to watch the returns with me. Lydia mentions above his diet Coke; at the time, I made sure the house was well stocked with Rudy’s favorite drink: actual Coke. (That’s why I used the Coke can picture above; I can’t find a pic of Rudy on line.) Rudy and I were relieved, though not excited, that Bush won.
(By the way, I know that both Rudy and I were disappointed by Bush’s actual performance, probably I more than he. One area where Rudy and I differed was on foreign policy and I was appalled by his invasion, before being in office for even a year, of Panama.)
I told my wife the other day that Rudy had died. My wife summed it up nicely: “He was a nice man.”
Update
Rick Weber, whom Rudy turned into an economist, has written a nice tribute to him. Here are three great paragraphs from his tribute:
I think my students hate it when I digress. They’ve been trained by a lifetime of standardized tests and the empty promise that ambition is as simple as uncritically ticking off the right boxes: take these classes in this order, get a degree, then get a job (whatever that means). There’s a lot of lip service to the importance of education, but now education is a commodity. Bricks to be stacked mechanically.
In Rudy’s class, education was a process of enlightenment. Knowledge wasn’t an assembly of bricks, but a garden–different bits of knowledge growing and complementing one another, fertilized with jokes and stories.
It was in his class I decided I wanted to be an economics professor. He also gave me a copy of the paper that convinced me of anarchism. I’m still trying to share a taste of the excitement I got in his class with my students. It’s an uphill battle, but I’m glad I’ve had the chance to fight ignorance with economics and humor.
[DRH addition on the issue of mechanically stacking bricks: One way that is becoming even more so is with the deadly Assurance of Learning requirements. They were coming into full swing about the time I retired and I’m glad I was able to largely avoid them. One way I resisted was by saying, “I already have assurance of learning: it’s in 4 problem sets, one midterm, and one final.” I notice that the AoL advocates don’t seem, by and large, to be, you know, actual teachers.]
READER COMMENTS
Jack Estill
Feb 9 2020 at 8:32pm
Rudy along with Lydia Ortega and Dave Saurman are the reason I returned to the university after 25 years. He constantly encouraged me and challenged me to think more clearly. I was fortunate to take several classes from him and he always inspired the love of ideas. He had a remarkable ability to see and argue both (or many) sides of a proposition. If you decided to push your understanding with Rudy, you had better bring all your best arguments because you were in for an intellectual adventure. I started to write battle, but it never was a battle. Because he was always so gracious, I seemed to walk away with a new, different, and often better perspective without feeling like I had lost anything. And then, I had more questions. What a gift. Like Rick, I try to bring that to my teaching. I wish I were able to do better, but I do better than I would have had I not been exposed to someone so accomplished.
I have one particular memory of a midterm I took from Rudy. He would let us bring a minimum of notes for the exam as he prized good logical answers with sufficient detail. I had four essay questions and I noticed as I finished the third one that I might have been too detailed and had only a few minutes left. I moved quickly through the final question. His comment in the middle of that last question was this, “Ah, I see that you are now running out of time.” As I read this, I thought I heard him chuckle as he often did in class. Why do I remember this so clearly? Rudy’s wide-ranging experience, good humor, and fellow feeling allowed him to anticipate what his students were thinking and respond to each individually. He inspired students’ reasoned inquiry. He will always be my example that teaching at its best is a two-way street where the teacher and student are bound together in the pursuit of understanding. Thank you for being there, Rudy.
David Henderson
Feb 10 2020 at 11:50am
Very nice reminiscence. Thanks, Jack.
Lydia
Feb 10 2020 at 7:22pm
Sharing reflections sent to me by Rudy’s students. From Mike Jerbic:
I’m sorry to learn about Rudy’s passing. I remember so vividly his Econ 141 Law and Economics class. It was the first of my time as as graduate student at SJSU, and after the first day of class, I was thinking, “This is the reason why I am coming here.” His class alone framed my reason for studying economics. I thought he did a far better job in teaching the undergraduate version of Law and Economics than David Friedman did the graduate version.
I think of Rudy often, even conjured him during my ABA meeting with the cyberspace lawyers where Jane Winn from the University of Washington and I recruited ten lawyers to work on “Crossing the Chasm: From Social Engineering to Governance Design,” a two-year project where that has a one year “book club” reading list to level set every project contributor. We’re aspiring to develop curriculum to train lawyers (students and those already in their careers) in thinking and applying decision quality and continuous improvement skills in the practice of law. I was thinking of Rudy and my time at SJSU the entire weekend.
Suffice to say that Rudy, Jeff, Doris (who was just such a sweet person at SJSU), Fred, Tom and you taught me how to think in ways that I use now every day. The education I got at SJSU I consider world class, and it was due to Rudy and all of you.
Lydia
Feb 10 2020 at 7:33pm
Sharing reflections sent to me by Rudy’s students. From Tanya Birman:
Indeed such sad news. I’ll never forget Rudy and his unique way of teaching. Btw, besides drinking the diet coke he also used it to wipe the board, sometimes, when the marker persisted. Much to our amusement. I’m so grateful to have taken his classes, and just being part of the department’s history, as a whole! The place that shaped me into the person I am today!
Sharing reflections sent to me by Rudy’s students. From Nikola Tasic:
At first this post brought a lot of sadness. Reading on, all good memories came back! I never encountered such a passion for arguing and understanding for my ignorance. After pointing to the door, the lecture went on for quite some time. If I had time between classes I would walk by the Saurman’s bench (even when it was not exactly on my way) in hope I will audit the outdoor part of Prof. Gonzalez’s lectures.
Sharing reflections sent to me by Rudy’s students. From Joanna Sobala:
Thank you for your email. This is sad news indeed… Prof. Gonzalez (Rudy) was a very special person and teacher; he certainly knew how to stimulate thought; I could not get enough of his digressions, jokes and stories. I would audit his class just to get more of the intellectual stimulation. I did not get to know his strategist talents but I did get to know his kind heart, generosity and warmth. I did not know he also taught a class on race and gender. I would have loved to sit in it. I am sure it would have been a great experience for critical thinking and I am sure I would still be thinking about it now.
Lydia
Feb 10 2020 at 7:39pm
Sharing reflections sent to me by Rudy’s students. From Ninos Pierre Malek:
He was one of my favorite professors while at SJSU for my BA and MA and he was a great teacher. He hired me as a Lecturer at San Jose State in 1999 and eventually pushed me to get a PhD. I’ll always be grateful. God bless his family.
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