Richard Ericson: An Appreciation

This is a surpassingly sad occasion. But it is a consolation to be able to commemorate Richard's remarkable life and the rich legacy he left behind him. Amidst our grief, we can celebrate the lasting gifts Richard made to the world of scholarship and learning. Many of Richard's colleagues and friends have traveled far to be here today. Many others, when they learned that I would be speaking, wrote to me to convey their distress at the news, to extol the virtues of the man they knew, and to express their gratitude for the gifts he gave them. In my remarks I will try to express some of the sentiments that they conveyed. Like Richard's book projects, which often unfolded in three separate volumes, I am going to address three themes of Richard's life and work: a) Richard as a colleague, an academic friend, an encourager and supporter of others; b) Richard as a scholar, a sociologist, and a criminologist; and c) Richard as a builder of institutions, an effective force for change who enhanced the academic world to which he devoted his working life. These themes are interwoven, of course. Each of them is marked by Richard's creativity and energy, by his striving for excellence and ever-higher standards, and by his quiet professionalism and personal integrity. I To begin with my own impressions: I knew Richard well, though not nearly as well as many in this room. Our friendship began in the early 1980s when he first invited me to Toronto and developed over the course of many subsequent visits to the Centre and to Green College. Our friendship was one of these long-distance, collegial relationships that are such an enjoyable and enriching aspect of academic life. We had several things that drew us together: not just the worlds of criminology on either side of the Atlantic but also other, more personal connections, not least our shared loyalty and affection for Derick McClintock, who had been Richard's PhD supervisor in Cambridge and was my head of department for many years in Edinburgh. I found Richard friendly, and easy to be with. One might infer from his remarkable productivity that he was driven and ambitious, but in person (at least to me) he always seemed relaxed, mellow, and to be enjoying himself. He enjoyed conversation and was good at it. He was a thoughtful and generous host. He had a wry sense of humour, a developed capacity for irony, and he liked to laugh--sometimes with a barely suppressed giggle that shook his tall frame and made him seem suddenly boyish. For someone who was so accomplished and successful, he was surprisingly modest and self-deprecating. He told stories against himself. He refrained from name-dropping. He made no effort to impress. He seemed very secure and never the least bit pompous or self-important. When Richard's friends and colleagues wrote to me, their impressions were very much the same. The words that recur over and over again in their letters are: gracious, helpful, warm, ... To those of us fortunate enough to know him well, he was not only a brilliant scholar, but a loyal, generous, self-effacing and kind friend with a wonderfully wry sense of humour. Pat O'Malley, Sydney University Richard was outstandingly nice, as well as richly creative. David Downes, London School of Economics [Richard was] a wonderful teacher and mentor to students of all ages and stages from across the world. A person who delighted in bringing people together for debate, discussion and the interchange of ideas, whose conferences, workshops and other events were always enjoyable and productive. And a loyal and generous friend, ever supportive. Nikolas Rose, London School of Economics I am not going to say much about Richard's mentoring of graduate students and younger colleagues: Kevin Haggerty, who knows as much about this as anyone, will be talking in a moment. …

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