Hugh Morgan taught journalism via kindness

This is a photo of Dr. Hugh Morgan, professor of journalism — but always just Hugh — to the left.

And there’s me. Right. Age 21.

We are in the 1809 Room, the fanciest on-campus dining facility at Miami University.

I have stared at this photo a lot in recent weeks, searching for details because Hugh taught me details matter. When I look closely, I can see I was still avoiding tomatoes on sandwiches. I can tell that on the day this photo was taken, it was probably Lent, and I was still Catholic and it was probably a Friday and that’s why I had ordered fish. Hugh has mostly cleaned his plate.

And here’s another thing: Undoubtedly, my friend Susan took this photo, and likely with Hugh’s camera. I can almost guarantee this is how the sequence played out. First, Hugh took a photo of Susan and me. Then, with some mild resistance and perhaps even protestation, I am sure Susan cajoled Hugh into getting a photo of the two of us.

Hugh took Susan and me to lunch at the 1809 Room every week that spring semester in 1998. After Susan graduated, he took me to lunch every week the next year.

One more thing. In the photo, you can see Hugh is gripping his wallet. Hugh paid. He always paid.

After Susan texted me in December that she read on Facebook that Hugh died, I dug out this photo, tucked among mementos from college parties and road trips before smart phones.

I have stared at it, thinking about the kindness of taking a student to lunch.

What’s been striking about the remembrances since Hugh’s death is that he always knew what students needed. Cash. Grace. A meal. Encouragement.

Here’s an abbreviated list of the chronological and maybe even inexplicable kindnesses he showed me (1996–2000):

• Just three or four weeks into our first class together, when I told him I had mononucleosis and I was worried about my assignments, he said we would make it work. We did.
• When I needed a letter of recommendation for an internship I was wholly unqualified for, he wrote one that was so kind, so eloquent and maybe a bit hyperbolic. For years afterward, my dad talked about that note because it was the kind of letter a parent would write.
• When I needed help balancing being editor of the student newspaper with earning enough credits to graduate, he set up an independent study.
• At graduation, he gave me a watch. He took a rare photo of me with my parents. And without protestation, he took a photo with me, in my gown. It’s the only photo I ever took with a teacher or professor.
• And finally in 2014, when my journalism career felt like it was in a rut and a student interviewed him about me for a class feature, he described me in a way that offered a reminder of what I aspired to be.

But I was not special.

This is how Hugh treated everyone. Whenever I asked Hugh about a reporter who had attended Miami, the answer was inevitably that they wrote “the cleanest copy” or were “one of the best to ever come through” or “the most fully formed reporter” he worked with.

They were all stars.

We were all special.

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In a final column for the student newspaper, I suggested younger classmates take two courses: one in international studies and one in classics.

Hugh liked the piece.

But it failed the first rule of journalism: it was not true.

ENG 318 — feature writing with Hugh — was the best class I ever took. I did not mention Hugh because at the time it felt cliché. In 1992, Hugh had won best teacher and in 1996 he had won another award and it just felt … so obvious, such an open secret. And then the year after I graduated Hugh won another teaching award.

But ENG 318 is a class I still talk about. There, we learned, good journalism at its core, is understanding. We learned details matter. And we learned we should always show, not tell.

In the last few weeks, I have reread as many old emails with Hugh as I could find and I have kept staring at this photo. I have stared because that college junior is thrilled — honored! — to go to lunch with Hugh. A lunch was all it took for Hugh to seemingly convince all of his students they could change the world, in big ways and in small.

I am 46 now. I have stared because I am convinced that if I look hard enough, I will spot evidence of another kindness from Hugh I may have missed, one more gift to fully appreciate years later.

EPILOGUE: Part of Hugh’s memorial services were held at a coffeehouse in Oxford, Ohio today. The organizers asked the attendees to order a coffee or pastry. Hugh had arranged to pick up the tab.