On Thursday, April 18, Longwood university faculty, staff and students honored the life and legacy of late Dr. William “Dr. B.” Stuart with a dedication event. The event featured the renaming of room 204 of the Center for Communication Studies and Theatre (CSTAC) as the Dr. Bill Stuart Memorial Classroom.
The event was held at 5 p.m. on the first floor of CSTAC with a reception held at 4:30 p.m. A memorial bench was also dedicated to Stuart and is located outside of CSTAC with blue rotundas on either side of it. The bench was purchased by family and friends of Stuart’s.
Professor Jeffrey Halliday, associate professor of Communication Studies, was the master of ceremonies and the closer of the ceremony. Interim President Marge Connelly spoke at the event alongside Dr. Pamela Tracy, associate professor of Communication Studies, and Dr. Naomi Johnson, associate professor of Communication Studies and chair of the Communication Studies department.
Since October 2012, Sarah Schmader, a senior communication studies major, led the process to the classroom dedication with her idea and was able to initiate it by approaching Bryan Rowland, vice president for University Advancement.
Rowland said, “I helped with the logistics of putting it through the university process and through the Board of Visitors approval process, but Sarah really did all the work.”
Schmader discussed where her idea for the naming of the classroom came from, saying, “There had been a lot of different ideas circulating about the way to best represent Dr. B. and his legacy after he passed, and initially the idea was to name the building, but that kind of fell through. So, this seemed like the second best choice to remember him.”
Tracy discussed Stuart’s legacy as a professor at Longwood University, saying, “I witnessed 30-second hallway conversations become 30-minute life lessons … Walks across campus became a series of mini-conversations with students.”
Tracy described Stuart as “a talker,” “always present and ready to meet with his students and his colleagues,” and stated, “That man used humor to motivate.” She further stated, “Bill was a walking, talking encyclopedia of pop culture references, half of which I couldn’t get … His pulp fiction or office space sermons were always imbedded with how to be a good citizen, scholar, friend and student.”
Johnson read a leader written by Stuart that was dated Oct. 26, 1999. The letter was in regards to an open position for Longwood University’s newly created Communication Studies program.
Reading what Stuart wrote in his letter, Johnson recited his words: “I view my teaching as a reflection of my value as a human being.”
Johnson said, “You probably won’t be surprised to know that his application is accompanied by a thick sheet of recommendation letters from colleagues at the University of Kansas, who were attesting to Bill’s innovation, his enthusiasm and his humor in the classroom.”
“As I looked at this, I think of how I think of our lives as being ripples on a lake, and our actions and our interactions, they ripple outward beyond us, and our lives touch other people’s lives in ways that we don’t anticipate and sometimes we’re not even aware of, and everyone in this room right now has been touched in some important way by Dr. B., by Bill Stuart’s life, either directly or indirectly,” Johnson said.
Speaking on one of the first experiences she had with Stuart, Johnson illustrated one moment in 2002 when she began her time as a faculty member at Longwood University’s Communication Studies program. Stuart, who was serving as interim chair of the Communication Studies program, invited her to Macado’s with other faculty members in the department. One of the faculty members that Stuart introduced her to included System Engineer for Information and Instructional Technology Services Greg Tsigaridas, whom Johnson would later marry.
She said, “Bill’s very simple act of kindness, of inviting a new colleague out for the evening so that I wouldn’t feel too alone in a strange new town was a ripple that touched my life, and brought a very wonderful man into my life and changed me for the rest of my life.”
Johnson spoke of a few of Stuart’s teaching methods that influenced and motivated his students. One method involved the utilization of two cards, titled, the Frog of Fortune, which was illustrated by a small, happy frog, and the Duck of Shame, which was illustrated with a rubber duck.
“If you could answer a question appropriately, then you were really lucky and you got the Frog of Fortune card handed to you. This was a big thing, but if you were unprepared and you couldn’t answer, you got the Duck of Shame,” said Johnson.
As a student who took one of Stuart’s classes, Schmader said, “He was just fun. Everything was always fun, and you were never watching the clock during his class because he always made it enjoyable and made learning funner than it is normally with other professors.”
Rowland said, “Bill was about students and the impact that he and others like him could make, and I can’t imagine a better tribute to Bill and to his memory to forever having a classroom named in his honor.”
Johnson said, “People who don’t even know Bill are still learning from his wisdom and his humor.”
Tracy said, “Every moment and every place was a teaching space for him, and that classroom in particular, he taught every semester, every class in that room. So, for us, we will never forget him, so we don’t really need the reminders, but I think generations of students coming through here – it gives us the opportunity to talk about how wonderful he is.”
Tracy added, “When you walk by [room] 204, or sit in class or teach in his space, remember that those four walls represent Bill’s mobile classroom, a precious and important philosophy of how to learn to teach and be with others.”
