Dr. Goodman and his Legacy

It's not often you miss a professor you never had.

I never had Dr. Daniel Goodman as a professor. But since he passed away yesterday at the tender age of 40, he's been on my mind a lot. He left my second semester at my undergraduate school. But I had friends who took his classes and professors who'd worked with him. At my school he was considered a bit controversial, but what set him apart was that as a professor, he demanded greatness and received it as a result. In the process, he remained a good man.

Friends who got "A"s in all their classes would sweat their way through a Goodman class and if they got a "B," they praised the heavens. But his true value wasn't just as an educator. He is the only professor to have received the professor of the year award twice and eventually had the award named for him.

Things with my school didn't work out (which was very likely, to the detriment of my school), and he spent the last several years working at Gardner-Webb University. He leaves behind not just a family, but a legacy of what a good professor can inspire from his students.

My prayers go out to his family. Thank you Dr. Goodman, for what you meant to my school.