Going to Durham Will Never be the Same
For fourteen years, I adored Murray Straus more than I can imagine adoring anyone.
I met Murray in the summer of 2002 when I attended the biannual International Family Violence/Child Victimization Research Conference. His research center, the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH, had an opening for a new PhD to assume a research position. A "post-doc" position is primarily for newly-minted PhDs, to gain additional, intense training in a specific field of study. In this instance, it was family violence. Having obtained my PhD only one month before, I attended the "Straus Breakfast" one morning and then seized the opportunity to ask about the position. I didn't really know how famous Murray was in the world of family violence, just that he was an important figure. I interviewed on the spot. I started work as his post-doc on October 7, 2002. I was 29 and at the very beginning of a career that felt like it was going nowhere.
Murray died on May 13, just two days ago. He was about six weeks from his 90th birthday. Have I mentioned how much I adored Murray?
I had a two-year post doc position with Murray. I managed the data for his International Dating Violence Study. The position was career changing. I emerged from my PhD program unfocused and feeling like I didn't really have any specific skills or knowledge. I had more skills than I thought, but I didn't know how to put them into practice. I learned how to do that under Murray's careful guidance: how to ask research question, present data so that average readers can understand it, and how to address critics. After I finished my post doc and started a tenure-track job at Bridgewater State University, he could just never get rid of me. During my 2010-2011 fellowship, I spent the year at the Lab and again during my 2013-2014 sabbatical. Anytime I could steal a few hours from my regular life, I would drive to Durham to see Murray. His Lab was my home away from home: a place with good colleagues, warm individuals, where I pursued my research agenda, and where intellectual conversations thrived. Sometimes I would visit the Lab and Murray just to have my soul nourished. I would come home feeling refreshed and alive after having been beaten down by the responsibilities on my own campus. This most recent academic year, I knew that Murray had little time left, so I made it to Durham every week to have lunch with him, to visit and soak up all that I knew Straus to be: Always in a suit and tie; always in sandals; always with his mobile device--attached to a pencil--in his shirt pocket; always at the computer and challenging the IT staff daily; always warm and happy to engage. Going to Durham will never be the same.
Oh, how I adored Murray Straus.
Murray was beyond productive. In the early 1970s, he unknowingly founded the field of family violence research, showing that people are far more likely to be assaulted by family members than strangers. He published 15 books and hundreds of articles, and traveled the globe reporting his research findings. He was the creator of the Conflict Tactics Scale, the most widely used instrument--anywhere, to measure partner violence. Having retired from a full professorship at age 85, he was still the most productive person I knew, coming into the office nearly daily until just a few weeks ago. A couple of months before his death, he counted that he had 17 papers in various stages of completion. This, in the year when he was fighting cancer and his health and energy were declining.
I adored how he welcomed anyone into his Lab.
Despite his fame, Murray was incredibly approachable. Anyone could call or visit him. He shared his knowledge, expertise, and mistakes willingly. He showed genuine interest in everyone who sat at the long table in his office and he was a mentor to everyone: undergraduates, graduate students, post docs, and colleagues. Even better, he sought feedback from all of these same people. He learned that he gained new insight into his research from others and so he routinely opened himself up to criticism and critique. Murray never met a research question he didn't like. Anyone who met with him had his undivided attention, always delighted to see anyone who appeared at his office door. He was incredibly skilled at using research assistants to further his productivity, but kept a close eye on the work being completed. He had a 10-page document entitled: "Guidelines for working with me" that he would give his assistants. One of the most important rules was to always write in pencil. It was much easier to clean-up our mistakes and to reuse paper products this way. In his weekly meetings he'd sit side-by-side at his long table with research assistants and say, "Well, what I think we should do is...." And, then he'd pause and say, "And, when I say we, I mean you." And, he'd laugh and laugh. Every time. Now, I make this same bad joke with my research assistants.
I adored his honesty and how well he knew himself.
Murray had health challenges throughout his adulthood, but he was incredibly resilient and didn't allow anything to get in the way of his work. I have heard stories about how he fired his cardiologist from his hospital bed because the doctor wouldn't allow Murray to bring his laptop into the hospital. Or, the time that he returned to the office, while still hooked up to an IV. When he was in his early 80s, he was in a car accident, fracturing several ribs. He still made it into the weekly research seminar. Then there was the time that a doctor basically forbid him to attend the conference hosted by his research center. He arranged to be discharged from the rehab facility and had his administrative assistant pick him up and bring him directly to the conference hotel. He didn't even stop at home first. And, you know what? He was fine. He attended the whole conference without incident.
When we were nearing the completion of our book, The Primordial Violence, Murray's enthusiasm for the project waned and he called me for a meeting in his office. In order for the book to move forward, I would need to do it. He didn't have it in him. My heart sank. I was really serving as an editor to this book, which documented his life's work on corporal punishment. It would take me months to complete what he could finish in half a day's work. He was a walking literature review on corporal punishment. I was not. My face must have shown my worry, because he perked right up and offered another suggestion. Maybe I would agree to come and work near him, on my own work, and my mere presence would compel him to complete the book. Yes, Murray. I will do this. I would do anything in the world for you. So, for the next three or four Fridays, I traveled to his seasonal home in York Beach. I sat at his dining table and did my own work, while he worked on our book. During lunch breaks he would delight me with reports about the progress he was making, thrilled that the plan was working, and then tell me stories about his life: his family, research, childhood, travel, and more. Thankfully, I knew what a rich time this was and how I would cherish these stories when he was gone.
I adored him for shaping my career.
Murray was interested in every research idea I proposed, every book project I brought to him, every grant proposal I wanted to write, and every article I wrote that passed before him. I wasn't special that way, but the attention that he gave me, shaped my whole career. He validated my ideas and praised my progress. I brought him endless quandaries about research, problems about academic life, unreasonable requests from editors, and problems with students and colleagues. He was endlessly generous with his time and such a good friend to me. I can't imagine what shape my career would have had without him. He launched some of the field's most impactful family violence scholars and touched the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of students and emerging academics - not to mention that he helped to make the private issue of family violence a public issue. I am so lucky that he touched my life. No -- that he shaped mine, leaving a significant impression on my daily ways of knowing and understanding the world of research and scholarship. As one colleague wrote to me: "Long may we carry on what he started."
Murray, I have a short-list of people for whom I would do anything in the world. You were at the top of that list. Somehow I will go on without you, but going to Durham without you there will never, ever, be the same.
I met Murray in the summer of 2002 when I attended the biannual International Family Violence/Child Victimization Research Conference. His research center, the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH, had an opening for a new PhD to assume a research position. A "post-doc" position is primarily for newly-minted PhDs, to gain additional, intense training in a specific field of study. In this instance, it was family violence. Having obtained my PhD only one month before, I attended the "Straus Breakfast" one morning and then seized the opportunity to ask about the position. I didn't really know how famous Murray was in the world of family violence, just that he was an important figure. I interviewed on the spot. I started work as his post-doc on October 7, 2002. I was 29 and at the very beginning of a career that felt like it was going nowhere.
Murray died on May 13, just two days ago. He was about six weeks from his 90th birthday. Have I mentioned how much I adored Murray?
I had a two-year post doc position with Murray. I managed the data for his International Dating Violence Study. The position was career changing. I emerged from my PhD program unfocused and feeling like I didn't really have any specific skills or knowledge. I had more skills than I thought, but I didn't know how to put them into practice. I learned how to do that under Murray's careful guidance: how to ask research question, present data so that average readers can understand it, and how to address critics. After I finished my post doc and started a tenure-track job at Bridgewater State University, he could just never get rid of me. During my 2010-2011 fellowship, I spent the year at the Lab and again during my 2013-2014 sabbatical. Anytime I could steal a few hours from my regular life, I would drive to Durham to see Murray. His Lab was my home away from home: a place with good colleagues, warm individuals, where I pursued my research agenda, and where intellectual conversations thrived. Sometimes I would visit the Lab and Murray just to have my soul nourished. I would come home feeling refreshed and alive after having been beaten down by the responsibilities on my own campus. This most recent academic year, I knew that Murray had little time left, so I made it to Durham every week to have lunch with him, to visit and soak up all that I knew Straus to be: Always in a suit and tie; always in sandals; always with his mobile device--attached to a pencil--in his shirt pocket; always at the computer and challenging the IT staff daily; always warm and happy to engage. Going to Durham will never be the same.
Oh, how I adored Murray Straus.
Murray was beyond productive. In the early 1970s, he unknowingly founded the field of family violence research, showing that people are far more likely to be assaulted by family members than strangers. He published 15 books and hundreds of articles, and traveled the globe reporting his research findings. He was the creator of the Conflict Tactics Scale, the most widely used instrument--anywhere, to measure partner violence. Having retired from a full professorship at age 85, he was still the most productive person I knew, coming into the office nearly daily until just a few weeks ago. A couple of months before his death, he counted that he had 17 papers in various stages of completion. This, in the year when he was fighting cancer and his health and energy were declining.
I adored how he welcomed anyone into his Lab.
Despite his fame, Murray was incredibly approachable. Anyone could call or visit him. He shared his knowledge, expertise, and mistakes willingly. He showed genuine interest in everyone who sat at the long table in his office and he was a mentor to everyone: undergraduates, graduate students, post docs, and colleagues. Even better, he sought feedback from all of these same people. He learned that he gained new insight into his research from others and so he routinely opened himself up to criticism and critique. Murray never met a research question he didn't like. Anyone who met with him had his undivided attention, always delighted to see anyone who appeared at his office door. He was incredibly skilled at using research assistants to further his productivity, but kept a close eye on the work being completed. He had a 10-page document entitled: "Guidelines for working with me" that he would give his assistants. One of the most important rules was to always write in pencil. It was much easier to clean-up our mistakes and to reuse paper products this way. In his weekly meetings he'd sit side-by-side at his long table with research assistants and say, "Well, what I think we should do is...." And, then he'd pause and say, "And, when I say we, I mean you." And, he'd laugh and laugh. Every time. Now, I make this same bad joke with my research assistants.
I adored his honesty and how well he knew himself.
Murray had health challenges throughout his adulthood, but he was incredibly resilient and didn't allow anything to get in the way of his work. I have heard stories about how he fired his cardiologist from his hospital bed because the doctor wouldn't allow Murray to bring his laptop into the hospital. Or, the time that he returned to the office, while still hooked up to an IV. When he was in his early 80s, he was in a car accident, fracturing several ribs. He still made it into the weekly research seminar. Then there was the time that a doctor basically forbid him to attend the conference hosted by his research center. He arranged to be discharged from the rehab facility and had his administrative assistant pick him up and bring him directly to the conference hotel. He didn't even stop at home first. And, you know what? He was fine. He attended the whole conference without incident.
When we were nearing the completion of our book, The Primordial Violence, Murray's enthusiasm for the project waned and he called me for a meeting in his office. In order for the book to move forward, I would need to do it. He didn't have it in him. My heart sank. I was really serving as an editor to this book, which documented his life's work on corporal punishment. It would take me months to complete what he could finish in half a day's work. He was a walking literature review on corporal punishment. I was not. My face must have shown my worry, because he perked right up and offered another suggestion. Maybe I would agree to come and work near him, on my own work, and my mere presence would compel him to complete the book. Yes, Murray. I will do this. I would do anything in the world for you. So, for the next three or four Fridays, I traveled to his seasonal home in York Beach. I sat at his dining table and did my own work, while he worked on our book. During lunch breaks he would delight me with reports about the progress he was making, thrilled that the plan was working, and then tell me stories about his life: his family, research, childhood, travel, and more. Thankfully, I knew what a rich time this was and how I would cherish these stories when he was gone.
I adored him for shaping my career.
Murray was interested in every research idea I proposed, every book project I brought to him, every grant proposal I wanted to write, and every article I wrote that passed before him. I wasn't special that way, but the attention that he gave me, shaped my whole career. He validated my ideas and praised my progress. I brought him endless quandaries about research, problems about academic life, unreasonable requests from editors, and problems with students and colleagues. He was endlessly generous with his time and such a good friend to me. I can't imagine what shape my career would have had without him. He launched some of the field's most impactful family violence scholars and touched the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of students and emerging academics - not to mention that he helped to make the private issue of family violence a public issue. I am so lucky that he touched my life. No -- that he shaped mine, leaving a significant impression on my daily ways of knowing and understanding the world of research and scholarship. As one colleague wrote to me: "Long may we carry on what he started."
Murray, I have a short-list of people for whom I would do anything in the world. You were at the top of that list. Somehow I will go on without you, but going to Durham without you there will never, ever, be the same.
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