RIP

Tonight, my wife and I learned of the recent death of one of your humble servant's dearest friends.  He and I were grad students at the University of Toronto at the same time.  His wife worked with my wife.  All of us lived in the same downtown student housing apartment building.  He earned his Ph.D. from Toronto and joined the faculty of the then-new York University on the west edge of the city.  He grew with York and became head of the science department, 10,000 students!  York now has an enrollment of 60,000 students, and he managed the science program for 10,000 of them.  When my wife and I were last in Toronto, we visited with him and his wife.  In the kitchen, he told me about the horrific internal faculty politics and battles over the future of the science department.  It was in fact causing him to pass, black out, literally.  I told him to step back, step aside, and let somebody else carry the stress.  I reminded him of how when we were starting out how he told me about the dean who ended up dying from a heart attack because of the god-awful faculty politics.  My friend loved to garden, and several of his gardens in fact grace the Toronto public spaces.  I advised him to step back, enjoy his family, and grow his love for gardens.  He did not; the stress of his job literally killed him.  He dropped dead from a stroke in the kitchen of his home, where his wife found him.  I share this story because stress is part of the job of management and leadership and change.  Your humble servant here was twice hospitalized himself for stress which came as a result of technology planning and project management.  I told him that too much stress kills.  It was killing him with blackouts, but his desire for professional excellence, having an outstanding science department, got in the way.  It cost him his life.  I share his story as a caution to you, my students.  We are not machines.  We are human.  We have limits.  Wisdom is factoring them.  I shall miss him badly.  He loved learning.  He loved his family.  He loved gardens.  Dr. Rux