"Be bold"

Be bold!” -- is one of the first things I remember Ted Lowi advising me, as he did so many of his students, and he certainly exemplified his mantra. I was fortunate to come to Cornell in 1981 to study with Ted Lowi and was honored to have him as my thesis advisor and to become his

research assistant and teaching assistant. Political science was not my major as an undergraduate at Oberlin College, but after taking a couple of government classes in my senior year I decided to apply for graduate school in the field. I made that naïve (and bold!) move because I thought politics and policy are most determinative of how well we can protect the environment, and I wanted to learn more about political change. Ron Kahn, who studied with Ted at the University of Chicago, taught the first government course I took, and he assigned The End of Liberalism. I mistakenly thought all of political science would be as insightful as that book and because Cornell and Ted took a chance on me, I went off to Ithaca. My first course at Cornell was with Ben Ginsberg who was not just Ted’s most brilliant former student, but his most trusted colleague and friend. Later Ben was the reason I ended up at Johns Hopkins University, where I have been for nearly 20 years. It all started with Ted.

Environmental policymaking was not a particular interest of Ted’s, but he would meet with me to discuss my topic endlessly and work through my argument about how statutory language was predictive of implementation outcomes. When I realized I needed to be in Washington to complete my research and gain some firsthand policy experience, he supported me even though he confided to me later that he worried that I would never return to academia. The advice he gave me (and so many of his other students) has stayed with me my whole career and I continue to share it with my own students again and again. My favorite quotes that to me encapsulate his basic approach to scholarship are: “Don’t get it right, get it written!” And, of course, “If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em!”

No question Ted is a giant in our field and he stands second to none. To me, he was the best of what any person could hope to be -- original in his thinking, wildly enthusiastic about all of life, and deeply caring of those close to him. We stayed in touch on and off throughout the years, and I last saw him for lunch at the Chinese restaurant in Collegetown in summer 2014. I was passing through Ithaca with my husband and youngest son and remember remarking to them later that Ted’s memory of my graduate school days at Cornell was sharper than mine. He was as witty and charming as always.

Kathryn Wagner Hill

PhD, Government, Cornell 1987

PhD Director, Center for Advanced Governmental Studies

Johns Hopkins University