Professors We Love: Roy Rosenzweig

I first met Roy Rosenzweig in my History 711 course. I had heard rumors that he was an amazing, albeit quirky, professor. I also knew a little bit about him from the small office in Robinson Hall B that then housed the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) back in the 1990s when it was a handful of computers.

He arrived to class with his ever-understated presence, the high-tech, mustached, and bespeckled professor, toting the very low-tech coffeemaker (complete with sugar, cream, and milk!) right into our classroom. It was then that I learned of his love of coffee and appreciation for students in need of caffeine at the end of the long workday to sustain and awaken them for their exciting academic evenings. Coffee with Roy went far beyond that class.

Time with Roy went fast, hours felt like minutes, and trying to hold on to him (in health and sickness) was like trying to hold on to water with your fingers. He said, “The fastest way to reach me is often through electronic mail, which I usually check quite regularly.” And, that was true. E-mails from Roy came at all hours.

Roy was critical in helping me enter the PhD program, a program he was critical in establishing. He gave me a job at the center after I lost my own job after September 11, 2001. He changed my life in so many ways.

The last time I saw Roy was on Metro’s Orange Line in early spring 2006. He was on his way to pursue a new grant for the center with a new CHNM fellow. We talked about my job and especially about history professor Larry Levine, who would pass away from cancer later that year. Roy had introduced me to Larry, and they had become the bookends of my academic aspirations.

For Mason and the History and Art History Department, the loss of these two amazing men in less than one year has been devastating—the pain of their absence is palpable, heavy, and hard to bear because heroes (academic, the non-tights-wearing ones), well, they don’t do things like die. For those of us left behind, I’m thankful that both Roy and Larry shared enough of themselves that they are in us all.

Cancer is terminal and temporary. Coffee, history, CHNM, scholarship, and friendship are forever.

—Chrissie Brodigan, BA English ’98, MA History ’00

Roy Rosenzweig, a historian and pioneer of digital technology and new media, died from cancer in October. He was the Mark and Barbara Fried Chair and director of the Center for History and New Media, which he founded in 1994. To read more remembrances, visit thanksroy.org.

 

Were you befriended by a mentor or professor at Mason who influenced your life? If so, tell us about it. Send your submission to Alumni Affairs, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, MS 3B3, Fairfax, VA 22030. Please keep submissions to a maximum of 500 words.