Louise K. Comfort
As an advanced graduate student completing his doctoral dissertation for the Department of Politics at Princeton University and lead graduate researcher for Gabriel Almond, Sidney Verba warmly welcomed me to the research team for the Civic Culture study in January, 1959. That day began a mentoring relationship that grew and deepened into warm friendship and trust over the next sixty years. As Sidney became co-author of The Civic Culture with Gabriel Almond and moved through the academic halls of Stanford, University of Chicago, and Harvard, he still found time to respond to emails, phone calls, and at least once a year to have a wonderful, wide-ranging conversation over dinner at the APSA. Over six decades, Sid made dinner at the APSA a continuing tradition. Through years of professional and personal challenges, Sid was the one person I could count on for candid, honest, caring advice on how to manage professional contexts that were not always easy for a woman. As a mentor, Sid used this extraordinarily effective means to guide my professional development. To keep the annual tradition of dinner with Sid, I needed to submit an abstract for the APSA program, write a paper based on actual research, and turn the paper into a publication, tasks that gradually led to professional confidence and performance. Sid’s steady, calm guidance, continuing encouragement, and wry wit defused many a potential professional pitfall for me. He set an extraordinary example as mentor, colleague, and friend. Sid leaves a legacy of path-breaking scholarship, rare kindness, and fundamental decency that will continue to guide the next generation of students and scholars.
