Walter D. Connor (from left), Paule Verdet, and David A. Wagenknecht. Photo of Connor by Kalman Zabarsky; photos of Wagenknecht and Verdet by BU Photography

Tributes

Remembering Three Professors Emeriti Who Helped Shape the University

Pardee’s Walter D. Connor, and CAS’ Paule Verdet and David A. Wagenknecht (CAS’62, GRS’64)

Walter D. Connor

Helped Shape International Relations at BU

WALTER D. CONNOR, a Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies professor emeritus of international relations, died on January 27, 2022.

Connor helped to pioneer the interdisciplinary study of international relations at BU, as an integral member of the original Center of International Relations, then the department of international relations, and finally the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. He also was a member of the political science department, where he served twice as chair.

“Anyone lucky enough to have known Walter will realize what a loss this is,” says William Grimes, Pardee associate dean for academic affairs and professor of international relations and political science. “He was funny, warm, iconoclastic, and generous. He was also an important scholar of Eastern Europe who wore his expertise lightly and treated everyone as an equal.”

Throughout his career, Connor exemplified the interdisciplinary character of teaching and scholarship, the hallmark of Pardee. Trained as a sociologist at Princeton University and specializing in Polish and Soviet/Russian society, he extended his scholarly work into the fields of politics and international relations. After beginning his academic career in the University of Michigan’s sociology department, Connor entered government service as director of Soviet and East European studies at the Foreign Service Institute for the US Department of State, where he served from 1976 to 1984. He then joined the BU faculty.

“Walter was a brilliant scholar whose assessment of the Soviet Union was remarkably accurate—as attested to by the country’s economic decline and ultimate dissolution,” says Igor Lukes, a Pardee professor of international relations and of history. “His office was a mess, his desk was overflowing with books and stacks of random papers, but he was always squared away and organized. His unmatched personal warmth, candor, openness, and affability made him stand out in a profession that rewards distance and bland politeness. Finally, he was a human being endowed with the gift of faith and a strong ethical anchor.”

Paule Verdet

Sociologist Who Later Taught in BU’’s Prison Education Program

PAULE VERDET, a College of Arts & Sciences professor emerita of sociology, died on May 26, 2022. She was 101.

Verdet was born in Paris, France, on January 19, 1921. She lived in German-occupied France during World War II, learning how to weld for the resistance. She came to the United States in 1948, with a master’s degree from the Sorbonne, to better understand Americans. At the University of Chicago, she found sociology, receiving her PhD in 1957. Two years later, she was asked by lifelong friend Sally Cassidy to teach social science at Wayne State University’s Monteith College. She developed a name for herself and was invited to join the BU faculty. She retired from BU in 1987.

Later, a colleague recruited her to work in the BU Prison Education Program, where, from 1990 to 2013, she helped numerous men obtain their bachelor’s degrees. “These are intelligent men,” Verdet told the Christian Science Monitor in a 1994 article about the prison program. “Most have college degrees, some earned before prison.”

She and Cassidy, a late CAS professor emerita of sociology, also sponsored refugees from the Indochina Wars. Verdet would house them, drive them to medical appointments, attend church services with them, and cosign for their student loans, promoting education and showing her faith.

A grateful recipient once asked Verdet, “What can I do for you?” Her answer: “Do something for someone else.”

David A. Wagenknecht

A Professor in the CAS Department Where His Father Taught

DAVID A. WAGENKNECHT (CAS’62, GRS’64), a College of Arts & Sciences professor emeritus of English, died on October 12, 2021. He was 81.

Wagenknecht was born in 1940 in Seattle, Wash., where his father, Edward Wagenknecht, was teaching at the University of Washington. The family moved to Illinois and, later, to Massachusetts, where Edward became a professor of English at BU. (Edward Wagenknecht, who died in 2004, taught at BU from 1947 to 1968 and was a prolific author.)

David Wagenknecht attended Roxbury Latin School. He earned his bachelor’s in English literature at BU, where he had his father as a professor, according to his brother Walter Wagenknecht (CAS’69, STH’73, MED’79). He went on to receive a master’s at BU and a DPhil at the University of Sussex, both in English literature. While at BU, he met his wife, Patricia Terwilliger (GRS’62).

He taught at several places prior to his appointment at BU, including the University of Hull in England, and Northeastern University. He taught at BU for decades and served as editor of its journal Studies in Romanticism.