Robert E. Hawkinson died May 22, 2011 of an apparent heart attack at the age of 68. At the time of his death Prof. Hawkinson was Emeritus Dean of Campus Life/Associate Professor of Politics at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. He was also Kaneko Faculty Commons Mentor, a position created as part of the Residential Commons system initiated by Prof. Hawkinson during his tenure as Campus Life Dean at Willamette. During his nearly thirty years at Willamette, Bob Hawkinson was a fixture on campus and one of the most revered educators, advisors, and mentors, reaching out to generations of students through his inspired teaching and committed dedication to the intellectual life of the university community. Although Bob was rewarded with emeritus status in 2009, he continued to teach in the Politics Department at Willamette for the remaining two years of his life.

Bob Hawkinson was raised in Chicago. He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1966 where he majored in political science and then returned to his home town where he enrolled in graduate school at the University of Chicago. Bob earned his MA and PhD in political science in 1969 and 1977, respectively. His dissertation, “Presidential Program Formulation in Education:Lyndon Johnson and the 89th Congress,” was informed in part by his work as a research assistant at the Brookings Institution and a junior staff associate at the National Opinion Research Center in Chicago. Bob's dissertation also blended his lifelong interests in American government and public policy focused on education. Over the course of his career Bob's devotion to the promotion of excellence in higher education never wavered.

Bob's vocation as a classroom educator began before the completion of his doctoral thesis. While pursuing his PhD he held teaching positions at the University of Chicago and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Bob taught as an Assistant Professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz full time from 1973 to 1982 at which time he joined the faculty in the Politics Department at Willamette University. In 1986 Bob was promoted to Associate Professor at Willamette. Bob's service to Willamette extended to his administrative positions. He served as Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts from 1993 to 1996 and did yeoman's work shepherding the college's new general education requirements through the process of proposal, debate, and approval, no small feat given the central role of general education to the undergraduate curriculum at Willamette. In 1998 Bob was named Interim Vice President for Student Affairs and later served as Dean of Campus Life prior to his retirement from full-time service.

Among Bob's greatest accomplishments was the creation of a residential commons program at Willamette. Bob believed that students benefitted best from immersion in a collegiate academic experience. He lived that creed, seeking out advising roles on campus and serving as a mentor to countless students and student organizations. Bob was integral to the development of the World Views and College Colloquium freshman seminar series that have been signature elements of the undergraduate curriculum at Willamette. Bob's own courses in the Politics Department, including American Political Thought and American Political Organizations, reflected his ability to synthesize concepts in American government and political theory in ways that were both challenging yet accessible to the undergraduate students. Bob's courses were highly sought out by Willamette undergraduates who praised Bob's teaching in superlatives unmatched by most of his colleagues.

As a researcher and author Bob was a keen scholar of American political life. In numerous publications and conference papers Bob explored the meeting points between political ideology and public policy. In his later works Bob's attention turned to local politics in Oregon, a topic in which he developed a deep interest. Bob's knowledge of American national and local politics and government was encyclopedic. He seemingly knew about every aspect of political structures and institutions in the United States and could best just about any challenger in a game of American political trivia. Over the course of his career Bob was the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, the Morton Grodzins Public Policy Fellowship, and fellowships at the National Institutes of Mental Health and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library.

Bob was a cherished colleague. His wit and humor were a strong tonic to quotidian tasks in the modern academy. When former Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield came to Willamette to teach briefly following his retirement from the Senate, Bob mischievously scoured Willamette's archives to find course catalogs from the years when the senator had taught in what was then known as the Politics Science Department (Hatfield also preceded Bob by several decades as Dean of Students at Willamette). With a twinkle in his eye, Bob suggested to Hatfield that he resurrect his course offerings from the 1950s, the topics of which were quaintly dated. One of Bob's last acts was to attend Willamette commencement one week to the day before his death. It was fitting that Bob was present at graduation exercises to see off yet one more class of students on whom he had a profound impact. Bob's vocation and avocation alike were the same, as an educator of political science. He truly embodied Willamette's motto, Non nobis solum nati sumus, “Not unto ourselves alone are we born.”

Bob was the only son of Ervil and Elizabeth Hawkinson and is survived by his first cousins, Sara Meyers, Constance Miller, Ann Kone, Reeve C. Parker, Elizabeth Parker, and their children and grandchildren.