Although I formally stopped being Michael’s student more than two decades ago, I remember it vividly—almost viscerally. The nervous anticipation of waiting outside his door for the student before me to leave his office hours; the click of the doorknob signaling it was almost my turn. The relief and gratification when he thought I was on the right track; or, when he pushed me too hard, the terrifying sensation that I might cry—terrifying to him too, when he saw it on my face. The joy of receiving his generous, detailed, single-spaced, Courier-font feedback on writing I had shared, usually less than a day or two after I had sent it. The awe of watching him lecture, pacing, to an undergraduate class, calling the students by name and cracking them up with his professorial schtick. The bustle of potlucks in his apartment with our dissertation group, joking about how his fridge held only a sad head of iceberg lettuce, before getting down to business (and occasionally watching him doze off). The surrealism of standing in my Oakland living room, practicing my job talk with him over the phone, when he was on sabbatical at Russell Sage. I suspect most of us who worked with him felt these emotions, and doubtless many others.

Michael and I stayed in touch after I left Berkeley, and he always expressed interest in what I was working on. He very occasionally shared his own work. But it was only in the last couple of years (again, twenty years later) that I had finally started to feel more comfortable around him. A little less anxious to please, a little more like a grownup colleague, maybe friend. Now, much too soon, I am considering his legacy. 

Michael’s sudden disappearance from the earth has made me feel the loss of a pillar I didn’t entirely realize I was resting on. At his retirement event, I reflected on how Michael approached his students, his work, and the discipline in ways that marked me—and I think most of us—very deeply. I took these approaches for granted at the time, but as my own career has unfolded I have seen how uncommon they were. I am now reflecting further about how his practices have created a model for me.

His teaching and advising, of course, were unusually engaged. I don’t think he ever saw undergraduate or graduate students as lower priority than his own work, as many faculty do, especially as they become more senior. In particular, I remember very clearly learning from how he tried to guide me and others step by step—opening the next door, rather than signaling ahead to the end of the road, which would seem overwhelming and impossible. He didn’t always do this perfectly (hence the crying), and I certainly don’t either, but it’s a goal I strive toward with my own students. 

I was also deeply impressed by Michael’s continued openness to new ideas over time. As I’ve aged, I’ve come to understand much better than I had when I was in grad school how challenging it can be to engage with unfamiliar approaches, whether they come from the present or the past. Partly it’s a question of time and energy; for some it’s a question of ego. Michael tried to recognize and confront what he didn’t know, from feminist theory to Bourdieu and then DuBois. As I see my students get younger and younger (right?), and shaped by intellectual currents that are beyond my experience, I hope that I have the wherewithal to keep this open and active mind.

Finally, also more unusual than I knew, was Michael’s core understanding that our teaching and research are and must be political. His political commitment unfolded in so many ways. The analytical and empirical links he made and theorized between lived experience and structural relationships. His dedication to putting public sociology on the disciplinary agenda. His commitment to research and scholarly communities around the globe, especially in the Global South. His participation in the politics of the university, broadly understood, and increasingly beyond. In a way I am glad he was spared living through this moment, when so many principles and communities he cared about are under authoritarian attack; but I also so wish he were here to lend his voice to the resistance.

So, the pillar is gone. It’s sobering and a little scary to think that now it is up to us to carry these commitments forward. But if he taught us anything, it’s that we have a responsibility to do so.