Imagine a job where you look forward to your annual review because you know you will leave feeling confident and committed to doing your best. Steve has always made me and my colleagues feel supported, challenged, engaged and valued. Aside from my mother, I cannot think of anyone who has believed more in my professional ability or appeared more proud of my accomplishments than Steve.
During my years as a junior faculty member, through tenure and beyond, Steve provided structural, creative and professional support. For Game of Thrones fans, let me say that I feel like I have only known "summer."
Structural support included conference travel as a platform for faculty research and an opportunity to build our networks. Steve also prioritized summer research grants and course loads that increased faculty focus on innovating teaching and scholarship. Steve provided creative support too, encouraging me to pursue my untraditional or poorly timed passions, like cohosting the Citizens United law review symposium in my second year or developing an experiential course before I was tenured. Later, this included writing an electronic casebook.
Steve helped me when I embarked on empirical research and needed resources like software, databases and Ph.D. students. He has contributed to my professional development by coaching me through difficult decisions, leading by example and incrementally increasing my leadership roles.
Perhaps most telling, Steve also readily celebrates our personal highs and laments our lows. He helped me find solutions to accommodate first my pregnancies (one difficult) and then the arrival of my two children. He gave our baby daughter her absolute favorite blanket; he inquires about illnesses; he wants to see the latest photos.
Under Steve’s leadership, I have felt like the elusive work/life “balance” is possible. The sense of loss I feel as he steps down is not about anxiety for the future but rather recognition that with Steve at the helm, I have grown professionally and personally in ways I could not have imagined. For this and more, I will always be grateful.
— Anne M. Tucker, associate professor of law