Jennie Dorris:
I'll never forget when Bob Woodward told me that he turned down a job at National Geographic. He was a newspaper man at the time, and loved the frantic pace, the hard reporting, the exhausting chase of the news. He said he when he first entered the National Geographic's offices, he felt like taking off his shoes. "It felt so sterile," he said, "and it just wasn't me."
I started Knot Magazine when I was 19, and was attending Drake University, home to one of the most competitive magazine programs in the nation. When the magazine launched, some of my professors were actually angry, or disdainful. One called me a "b-list student" for trying my own thing instead of working for local Meredith Corporation. But not Bob Woodward. He delighted in every issue, steered my very inexperienced editing, and spread the word about KnotMag to all his classes.
Bob Woodward is not the Bob Woodward you've been reading about in the papers. He's a journalist and teacher of about the same age, and, ironically, the same name as the journalist that's been making a lot of headlines. Something interesting about my Bob Woodward is that he was never interested in making headlines, and never interested in being in the spotlight. But he had a brilliant talent at launching his students straight into stardom.
It was unfailing: with each class that passed through the college, Woodward would sniff out the unsatisfied hell-raisers and take them under his wing. He'd encourage our rebellion and then slap the AP style guide in our face. After countless emails from him correcting AP style rules, I found that rebellion is better when all its words are spelled correctly.
I don't often talk about how I started Knot Magazine, and I don't enjoy writing editor's letters exalting what I do here at the publication. Frankly, it's been running for five years and it's become a way of life that I'm so quietly confident in that I forget I need to keep bragging about it. But when I heard that Woodward was retiring this Friday, I thought about the days when I started this magazine. I thought of the messy first issues that we published monthly. I remember our sparse ascent into daily publication. Most of all, I remember a very shy girl that liked creative writing but didn't believe in her work when she entered college. Now I get to live as this confident woman, completely fulfilled in my creative dreams. I'd like to say that most of that is thanks to Woodward.
Mary Gustafson:
The first time I met Bob Woodward, I was a senior in high school, checking out Midwestern journalism schools. When another professor introduced me to him as Bob Woodward, my jaw dropped, until they explained he wasn't THE Bob Woodward. "He never forgets a name or a face," the other professor told me, and he didn't.
When I initially applied to Drake's journalism school, I checked the box next to "news" instead of "magazines" which I switched to the day I registered for classes. Woodward never forgot the millisecond for which he was my academic advisor, and reminded me often that I was destined for newspapers not magazines. And although I remained a magazine major for 4+ years, he was every bit the advisor he would've been if I'd stayed in news.
Some English and journalism professors seem to take pleasure in breaking down young writers, making them doubt their ability. While Woodward didn't mince words when editing a paper, he stopped just short of attaching gold stars, tempering criticism with enthusiasm. Woodward saw me through every high and low that I experienced in college. When Knotmag won awards he put up bulletin board to broadcast the news. He helped me get internships in Washington, D.C. all the while instilling within me a love of the city and politics in general. The two times I had to leave school because of my health, he supported me and let me complete his class via his beloved Internet (a newspaper man to the core, the Internet fascinated him). On the day I finally graduated, it was his guidance and approval I sought the most.
It's almost as if Woodward knows how much he means to his students. His office door is always open and emails never go unanswered. I think every former Woodward student wants to believe that they were his most memorable or unique student, because he has a way of convincing you that you are.
Drake University won't be the same without you, Woodward. Now go count some monarchs.
