[The Montana Professor 17.1, Fall 2006 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
Michael Mayer
History
UM-Missoula
michael.mayer@umontana.edu
This past summer, the academic world lost one of its most accomplished scholars and most creative leaders. Kermit Hall, President of the University at Albany, State University of New York, died while on vacation in South Carolina. With his passing, The University of Montana lost a friend who spoke on this campus for the inaugural celebration of Constitution Day. Hall had been President of Albany since February 1, 2005. A statement released by New York's Governor, George Pataki, praised Hall as "both an outstanding university and community leader." Pataki singled out for comment Hall's tireless work to improve academic standards. John Ryan, Chancellor of SUNY, said: "Kermit Hall was a distinguished scholar and mentor to students and faculty alike who, as president for far too short a time, made enormous contributions to the academic advances of the University at Albany. The State University has lost a colleague of vision, integrity, and dynamism." In addition to his accomplishments as an academic administrator, Hall was a genuinely distinguished historian of the American Constitution and American law.
After completing his undergraduate work at the University of Akron in 1966, he earned a Master's Degree from Syracuse in 1967 and served four years in the Army. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1972 and earned a MSL from Yale University Law School in 1980. Hall taught history at Vanderbilt University, Wayne State University, and the University of Florida, where he had a joint appointment in the School of Law. From there, he went into administration, but that did not stop him from teaching and writing history. It did not even slow him down appreciably. He served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tulsa from 1992-1994. Following that, he became Dean of the College of Humanities at Ohio State University from 1994-1999 and Executive Dean of the College of the Arts and Sciences from 1996-1999. While there, he established a center for the study of legal history and a fellowship in legal history. The University of Montana can take great pride in the fact that the first person to hold that fellowship earned his MA at The University of Montana.
After leaving Ohio State, Hall moved to "Tobacco Road" and spent a year as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at North Carolina State University. From there, he went on to become President of Utah State University from 2000-2004. After that, he assumed the presidency of the University at Albany.
It would take more space than allotted here just to list his publications, but several demand mention. He published The Politics of Justice: Lower Federal Judicial Selection and the Second American Party System, 1829-1861 (1979); The Supreme Court and Judicial Review in American History (1985); and the classic, The Magic Mirror: Law in American History (1989). The Magic Mirror was a brilliant synthesis that brought into focus the relationship between law and society. No less an authority than Harold Hyman called it "perhaps the best brief history of American law." Hall was editor of The Oxford Companion to American Law (2002), The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court (1992, rev. ed., 2005), and, with Paul Finkelman and William Wiecek, American Legal History (1991), also published by Oxford University Press.
More than a great scholar, teacher, and administrator, Kermit Hall was an ungrudging mentor. He was exceptionally generous to younger legal historians, students, and younger scholars at the departments and institutions he led. He was also willing to help out a friend. When I invited him to speak at UM, he immediately agreed. I think it safe to assume that we were not the only institution to ask him to speak on the first Constitution Day. He never asked about what the fee was, or even if there was one (we did scrape together a nice honorarium). Moreover, he squeezed us into a hectic (it actually seemed killing) schedule. After spending the morning working in Albany, he arrived not much more than an hour before his talk. He left early the following morning for Houston, where he gave another talk that evening, and from there left for China. Amidst all that travel, he treated us to a wonderful talk on "Twenty-Two Things You Need to Know About the Constitution."
His visit here, a minor episode in an eventful life, said everything there was to say about Kermit Hall. He was full of energy. He delighted in engaging audiences. He loved visiting new places. He was a masterful teacher who could bring serious scholarship to bear on a talk intended for the general public. He was a truly important scholar who loved to share his knowledge. And he was a good friend. We will miss him.
[The Montana Professor 17.1, Fall 2006 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]