Tell the truth, tell it early, and tell it often

So on Monday morning I woke up to a text message from a friend from college telling me the upsetting news that one of our professors and my advisor, Dr. Stuart, had suddenly passed away. Although at some points this professor and I did not see completely eye to eye, he was always there to help his students, and I can not deny that he was great at what he did; I could not have gotten through college successfully without his help.

When starting out college at Longwood, I was an Athletic training major and realized quickly that AT wasn’t that path for me, I wanted a lifestyle that didn’t constitute me wearing sweats everyday to work. That just wasn’t a cute enough avenue for me, I couldn’t live in an industry without dresses. But it was not just the fashion choices that led me in a different direction, anatomy was just a subject I could not master, so it really wouldn’t have worked out anyways. I fell in love with the Communication Studies department, always enjoying my classes, and my professors. We as a department pride ourselves on being tight knit and really thinking of ourselves as a family, as a COMMunity. Corny, but perfect for us all the same.

With that being said, losing someone from our COMM family is really heartbreaking, especially someone who was such a huge part of the department, and LU campus. He was a great advisor and with his help and the help of my other amazing professors I was able to complete an A earning senior thesis that is all my own work; had you told me I would have that under my belt 4 years ago I probably would have said you are crazy.  It is hard to lose someone who has had a lot of influence over your learning and the path for your future. There are so many lessons in his classes that I have put to use in my real life career path, and I know there will be so many more things that I will refer back to and thank Dr. B for everything he taught me, and my colleagues.

One of the lessons, and first rule of PR that he always told us to remember was,

Thanks for everything you did for us Dr. B. Rest Easy.

For more information see the Longwood University website.

xoxo GFP