(The following is written in memory of Professor Charles Rice, who passed away on February 25, 2015, and whose influence continues to be felt in unassuming places.)
It was my first day at Notre Dame Law School, and I was admittedly nervous. Having received my previous education entirely within the confines of Alabama, I worried that my experience with Southern hospitality might not extend to the border of South Bend, Indiana. After all, I had heard the horrors of law school in general—stories of law professors whose only goal was to use the Socratic method as a guise to ridicule and demean unsuspecting first years. Perhaps the fact that Notre Dame was a “Catholic” school didn’t exempt its professors from a similar goal.
That’s when Professor Charles Rice walked to the front of my torts class. Professor Rice’s reputation as a speaker, author, advisor, and leader in Catholic education and the pro-life community already preceded him, and if anyone had a “right” to demand respect, it would have been him.
By all appearances, though, he didn’t seem particularly threatening. He was medium-sized with blue eyes and a certain spirit in his walk. He spoke fast and straightforwardly—telling the class he had lived in Boston; was once in the military; used to box; had a large family; and had been a torts, constitutional law, and jurisprudence professor at Notre Dame for years. I began to relax.
Then it happened.
A student on the same row as myself interrupted him to ask a question. Professor Rice’s entire demeanor suddenly changed. He glared at the student and began smirking and sniffing to himself in the same way my half Polish-half Italian father used to do when he watched the nightly news. In a flurry, and mumbling under his breath about the student’s audacity to interrupt him while he was talking, he then grabbed the student by the collar, lifted him from his seat, and forced him out the door. Just like that.
I—along with the other students in the room—sat in shock, wondering if we were next, wondering if this was confirmation that our own horror story had just begun.
Before we worried too much, though, the just-battered student returned to the room… laughing with Professor Rice. Apparently, the two had pre-planned the first-year prank in an effort to lighten the mood for us students, who he believed were far too serious. And frankly, he was right.
I realized then that this professor was different from other respectable (or even simply hospitable) professors. He had some supernatural sense of—and interest in– his students’ well being that surpassed his own ego. In doing so, he not only earned my trust but also introduced to me for the first time to the heart of a Catholic teacher.
Over the course of the next three years, I therefore made it part of my educational mission to observe Professor Rice closely. I sat in awe at his ability to organically lead a class discussion on assault and battery into one discussing God’s goodness, natural law, or the seven deadly sins. I listened as he spoke eloquently on serious subjects of human rights without ever falling victim to a life taken too seriously. Even more impressive was his ability to discuss and weigh his bold stances on God’s truth regarding abortion, same-sex marriage, and the death penalty against opposing viewpoints without sacrificing the charity, respect, or the sense of the human dignity that unites all people. And on a rare occasion, when I managed to get past my own introverted nature and stir up the nerve for a one-on-one encounter in his office (once to ask for a recommendation and once to bring him some Dream Land barbecue sauce as a thank you), he moved away from his desk and happily spoke with me. It was as if it was part of his mission to put me at ease and make me feel both valuable and worthy of his time.
The last interaction I had with Professor Rice before he passed away this February occurred two years ago. Having ultimately gone into Catholic education myself, I had sent him an email thanking him for his influence in my own life and for his continued work on protecting Catholic principles in our increasing secular society. Given that this email came nearly twelve years after my own graduation from law school and that he was surely busied with his new students and new projects, I did not expect him to respond. Time and distance changes things, I imagined. But Professor Rice had not changed.
He responded within minutes and then indulged this admirer in email exchanges filled with ideas and—as was his way—words of encouragement.
Yes, Professor Rice embodied for me all that is good with Catholic teachers. And as my own academic year draws to a close and I reflect on my own years as a teacher, I am eternally thankful for his influence because I know that I can weigh my successes and failures by not only the standard he established, but also the kind of heart that followed it.
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