Dr. Robert Dardenne, an associate professor of USF St. Petersburg’s Journalism and Media Studies program, passed away unexpectedly on Friday, Oct. 19. He spent 22 years with the department.
Below,friends, colleagues and former students recall their favorite memories of the beloved professor, and offer their personal goodbyes to a man who changed their lives.
Click here for more information on Dardenne and his passing.
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Bob Dardenne was the first person I met when interviewing for the department director’s job in 2005. He was to take me to dinner the night I got in. Bob pulled up in an old Honda (Civic, I believe), windows rolled down, despite the scorching Florida heat. The car was dinged, scratched, discolored and, he explained, the air conditioning hadn’t worked for years. I’ll always remember his first words, spoken with no apology or bitterness. “This is what nearly 20 years here gets you,” he smiled.
We headed to dinner at an upscale restaurant, and that’s where I got to know the true measure of the man. When the server asked if we wanted a drink, Bob quickly answered, “at least one.” The interrogation began. “You drink, don’t you?” Not the first question I expected. I assured him I did. “Thank Christ,” he drawled. Referring to one of my competitors for the job, he added that “the guy last night didn’t and it nearly killed me. I had to drink three or four good bottles of wine all by myself.” Then there was this reassurance: “I like you already.”
That was Bob Dardenne, the man I would come to affectionately call “Bayou Bob,” the man who over many more good bottles of wine and finely stirred Manhattans, became my closest friend and colleague. I would joke with and about Bob (it was reciprocal, as most of our students know), but also we would argue, sometimes so vehemently that it made others around us uncomfortable. In the aftermath, neither of us could remember the dispute, who “won” or “lost” (seldom was there a clear victor) or understand why others still focused on the spectacle. We just loved testing each other, our idea, and beliefs. More often than not, we were already on common ground. Even when we weren’t, we somehow found it. Credit for that goes to one of the most genuine, kind, and intellectually honest men I have ever known. There was only one occasion on which I found him to be completely wrong.
As the last few days have proven, Bob, 20 years teaching and inspiring students gets you a whole lot more than you told me back then. That old car carried you hundreds of thousands of miles, but the love of your students took you the rest of the way. # Tony Silvia, Department of Journalism and Media Studies
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After my first day of graduate school I went home and told my boyfriend that I had “The Dude” from “The Big Lebowski” as a professor.
Time would prove Bob Dardenne infinitely cooler, wiser and important to me.
As much as he taught me about journalism, he taught me more about life and what I wanted to be like when I grew up.
Dardenne could talk to anyone about anything and make them feel comfortable. I don’t know if this was natural talent, or perfected over years of being a reporter, but I suspect it was a mix of the two.
Long before I asked Dardenne to chair my thesis, he discovered I liked my bourbon neat, and we’d start drinking Manhattans around St. Pete.
He knew someone everywhere I went with him, whom he was genuinely pleased to see.
We’d drink, swap stories and usually forget to talk about anything academic.
I’m a newspaper reporter now, too, and I was in the newsroom on Friday when the bad news came. I went out back and cried, because I had been meaning to make plans to catch up with him, just about everyday for the past two weeks. I cried because if I would have emailed or called him, I would have been able to talk to him one last time.
I have so many things I still need to ask him about.
My three favorite Dardenne memories:
– Any time I walked by his office. His door would always be open, and he’d be working with his feet up. He’d say he had things to do but would always tell me to sit down, and would spend as much time with me as I needed. Talk always veered off topic toward the end.
– Media theory, fall 2011, sometime in October. Dardenne brought in a Halloween costume ad and talked for at least an hour on the implications of “cutie pirate” and other degrading costumes for little girls.
– After he sliced my thesis to shreds a few days before it was due, then vociferously defended any criticism my other committee members had during the defense. # Wendy Joan Biddlecombe, JMS graduate class of 2012, Reporter at Hernando Today/Tampa Tribune
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Farewell Dr. Dardenne.
Something about that statement is too stiff. It is not a simple goodbye rather farewell carries a heavier weight of finality with a strange twist of formality to it. All of us have a Dr. Dardenne story.
In May 2010, Dr. Dardenne changed my life forever. I remember his office very distinctly; it was full of books and stacks upon stacks of papers. He was in the middle of grading a final paper when I poked my head in to ask a few questions about the program.
He gestured me into his office, leaned back in his chair and asked why in the world did I want to be a USFSP journalist student. His laughter echoed off of his office walls when I told him I went to school in Mississippi. His witty, dry humor caught me off guard. It would become something I loved about him. It was that day in that conversation with Dr. Dardenne that sealed my commitment to USFSP.
I graduated in the spring of 2012. I moved to Mississippi for graduate school. Within six months, I took on a full-time position in social media at that university. I attribute getting the job to the skills I gained from the USFSP journalism program. I am forever thankful.
Dr. Dardenne embodied and defined the journalism program at USFSP. He was a tough professor and brutally honest in grading papers. He was one of the best and will be sorely missed.
Goodbye Dr. Dardenne.
# Summerly Brown, JMS undergraduate class of 2012
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Bob Dardenne taught us to be concise, yet thorough. With that lesson in mind, the best thing I can say is this: He is missed. # Nathanael Kurant MA, Journalism and Media Studies
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It’s rare to have an instructor with as much experience and investment in his students as Dr. Bob Dardenne.
He sat with an open office door and beckoned a curious student journalist to discuss her future. It was coincidental that I met Bob so soon in my career and it was his talent that made me spill my dreams to a stranger. He took an interest in my experiences and motivated me to continue to work hard with the writing opportunities I had piled on my plate. I wanted to know as much about journalism as Dardenne did.
Within an hour, I was on my way to taking courses beyond my anticipated starting year.
Within a year, I knew more about foreign correspondence, reaching out to sources, befriending entertainers and exploring journalism beyond textbooks and initial encounters. Every class he would throw around the names of various influential writers that he wanted us to know. I read every single one.
Dardenne’s influence isn’t over at the Journalism and Media Studies program. He was a leader in experiential education, from the conception of Neighborhood News Bureau to his guidance for covering entertainment news in his summer course. Dardenne predicted the advent of social media and its influence on this generation, particularly for journalism.
Many will know Dardenne as a brilliant writer, innovative department head and amusing professor. I’ll never forget the Dardenne who patted me on the shoulder and said, “Keep up the good work, Starling.” # Amanda Starling, JMS undergraduate student
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Yesterday morning, it was just another photograph sitting in a blue bin that anchors cobwebs in my dusty basement here in Boston. Yesterday evening, after the call came, this picture – overexposed, off-centered, and slightly out of focus – became one of my most cherished possessions. I stop occasionally in the writing of this post to touch it, as if somehow Bob can feel my gratitude, wipe my tears (as he’s often done), and hear my prayers for him, for Barb, for Bobby (now Rob).
Are you there, Bob? Can you feel how much we all loved you? I can’t do this unless I’m talking directly to you. I’m really mad that you’re not here, and I’m trying hard to find peace in the fact that you were sleeping. But it’s not happening, and this is just all wrong. I know I’m not alone in the devastation I feel. The world just became one shade dimmer, far less sweet, and even harder to understand – because I can’t share it with you. You were a friend and a hero and a compass to so many, and you will always be those things and more to me.
I heard the gut-punching news yesterday from good ol’ Chris – a friend who knew how many beers we shared at the Tavern as you tried to help me grapple with everything from Media Theory to relationships to career, who knew I used to babysit Rob, who knew that this news would make it harder for me to breathe.
The photo was taken on the night of my graduation party at my sister’s place on Coquina Key in 1998. Your sunglasses hang from your neck by a hot pink (magenta?) strap (what were you thinking when you bought that?!), and you are spinning me around in order to point me in the right direction, so I could hit the piñata hanging from the fruit tree. It’s a perfect photograph because it says it all. Since that evening, Bob, you have continued to point me in the right direction on so many fronts that had nothing to do with journalism, and I will forever cherish you – my professor, my mentor, my friend. # Kristen Kusek, former student in JMS graduate program
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As his former master’s advisee in the first cohort of graduate students at Bayboro, I have stayed in touch with Bob, most recently seeking his counsel in March over whether to take a job in Georgia this year. (Typically against his advice, I did, and he never knew it.) In the 21 years I knew Bob, he never changed except to grow wiser and more in love with Barbara and Rob. Bob and I tussled intellectually for two decades but mostly agreed philosophically about journalism and news. His inaugural theory course in 1992, full of Marxist readings that influenced his thinking, informs my scholarship today. Bob’s reach was unfathomable. It has been a joy amid the sadness this weekend to read comments from his students, current and former, who claim him as their own, as they should since he made every one of us feel valued and as if our ideas mattered. Bob belonged to all of us, and now to the ages. # Rick Kenney, Ph.D. (USF St. Petersburg, MA, 1994)
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I didn’t know you very long, and I only had one class taught by you. But you still had such an impact on me. I really just want to say thank you. Thank you for taking your entertainment reporting class to a Rays game, an outdoor play and a concert downtown. Thank you for letting a few of us grab some drinks before enduring that concert full of teenagers. Thank you for telling me your wine was just adult grape juice. Thank you for telling Meaghan and I about the delicious diner in Seminole Heights. Thank you for sending your email responses in all capital letters, making me think you were yelling at me.
Thank you for calling us all by our last names. I loved hearing “Good job, Tatham.” Thank you for all the inspiring things you did with the journalism department. Thank you for everything you taught your students and me. # Chelsea Tatham, JMS undergraduate student
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I’m grateful Dr. Dardenne and I got to exchange our usual squinty-eyed, hero versus villain-type looks to each other one last time before a lecture he gave in September. During the talk, he was as thoughtful as ever, articulating the shifting definitions of privacy, of citizen journalism, and more importantly, describing how Facebook is like an octopus. The ease with which he spoke mirrored how a discussion in his classroom might unfold. I smiled.
Meeting Dardenne, and continuing to learn from him and about him, will be among the many memories I carry with me after graduation. I can still hear his voice, his suggestions about music, beverages and greasy spoon hole-in-the-walls.
Dardenne taught my first reporting course at USF St. Petersburg.
I couldn’t have asked for a better way to fall in love with journalism. # Meaghan Habuda, JMS undergraduate student
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I owe a good portion of where I am today to Dr. Dardenne. He was the first to respond to my inquiry about applying to USF St. Petersburg, and he repeatedly helped me through the application process (something I’m guessing he might have regretted when I convinced him to do an independent study with me on Marshall McLuhan.) After graduation, I took his advice and went to work in community newspapers. Now I’m about to finish up my own Ph.D. in journalism, and I can only hope to inspire in my students the passion for reporting that Dr. Dardenne helped spark in me. We’ll miss you, Dr. D. # Heath Hooper, USFSP JMS Graduate
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The last time we spoke, you reminded me that the staff page on the Crow’s Nest website was not updated, and Ren was still listed as editor-in-chief. Boy, do I wish that were true after the editorial decisions I had to make today. Nothing we run in this paper will suffice as a worthy tribute. But know that if it were not for your instruction and inspiration, majority of the current Crow’s Nest staff would have never made it to this newsroom. I know I wouldn’t have. I’ll fix the website tomorrow. # Killette
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I remember first meeting Bob and Mike, and really getting to know them and their love and advocacy for community news during the seemingly eternal summertime enjoyed by those of us wise enough to hang around the Tavern on Friday afternoons back during the early 1990s.
Together they made quite the pair. A charismatic, dynamic, hilarious pair. It was some good times had by all, indeed.
I remember then Bobby, now Rob, running up and down Bayboro in a white onesie with the seat unsnapped. Giggling and drooling, emerging from his father’s tiny yet, even then, perpetually on the brink of overflowing office.
I remember Friday nights at the Tavern. Cigars and nips from brown sack wrapped libations. And the conversations. The laughter. The unabashed scholarship of friends.
Mike and Bob. At the Tav. I learned more about journalism from those two on those Fridays. It was a beautiful thing. Poynter spilled into our independent bookstore; so did the staff at the Times. Guitars and tropical breezes. And discussions.
I find myself digging through boxes hoping to find messages. There are several. I rejoice and my heart breaks. It is devastating, and I am so thankful for it. I realize that for the last 20 plus years, my life has been filled with the wit and wisdom of my friend. Sometimes it’s about journalism. Mostly it’s about character. Always, there is storytelling.
Bob taught me many things. Among them, the value of time, of giving it and sharing it, of being willing and open and kind.
He taught you whatever you needed to know and did so in such a way that you ended up thinking it was your idea to begin with. His door was always open. He judged no one. He challenged us all.
He changed, in some profound and positive way, every life he touched. He was both a teacher and a journalist in the consummate sense. Just a great human.
My heart is with Barb and Rob. As are so very many.
Rob, kid, your dad loved you and was so very very proud of you; and Barb, I always admire his sweet affection for you, and his awe of your talents. Makes me smile to know I saw, sometimes daily, how much he loved you both.
I am who I am today, as a writer and photographer and person, largely due to Bob Dardenne’s influence. I know I am far from alone in this regard.
I laugh and I cry and I drink wine and remember my friend. My irreplaceable, remarkable, amazing friend. And I am so thankful for every moment I had in his presence and energy; and terribly sad for knowing he is gone. # Therese Hounsell
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I met Dardenne for the first time at the Tavern. He had a glass of wine in his hand, and he was laughing.
This is the image that will always come to mind when I picture him.
That day he complimented me on my beard (I always admired his) and asked how the older kids on the newspaper staff were treating me. He said something to the effect that I had fallen in with good company.
During the half of a semester that I was fortunate enough to be in one of his classes, I learned from one of the best about good writing and good thinking. I always secretly thought of him as the Dumbledore of the journalism department. He certainly imparted enough wisdom in the short time that I knew him to justify such a comparison.
In the first Harry Potter book, which Dardenne told our class he never finished, Dumbledore says: “After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”
Dardenne, I hope it finds you well. # Ryan Ballogg
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Two weeks ago, I first saw Bob teach. We had attended countless meetings together. I had watched him give talks and host events. But, on this occasion, he was visiting senior seminar to cover the history of journalism. And I had my first chance to see him in the classroom.
I found myself caught up in the moment, taking notes alongside my students, marveling at how issues we think are unique to our time also challenged our predecessors.
Bob’s enthusiasm was palpable, and it was clear he did what all great teachers do: He got students excited about learning.
When I came to USFSP two years ago as a new faculty member learning the ropes, I often sought Bob’s counsel.
He was a constant source of insight and support. Bob understood the profession and the institution. But he also understood the people. He knew whom to talk to and how to make things happen.
As a founding member of the department and a scholar focused on theory and history, it might be tempting to conclude Bob was strictly analog when it came to technology.
Not true. He had a deep appreciation for how digital tools are shaping journalism and, ever the optimist, saw all the good that could come from using technology to create and consume the news.
But he also recognized the value of skills that extend across platforms. And he saw the potential of journalism # whatever the medium # to be an instrument of social justice.
Bob cared so deeply about his work, his profession, and, especially, his students. He didn’t just show up. He worked to make things better.
Above all, he treated everyone with respect and dignity, always looking for ways to lift them up.
I learned so much from Bob. It was a privilege to be his colleague. And a blessing to see him teach, if only just once.
I’ll miss him terribly, and my heartfelt condolences go out to his family. We have lost a great man. # Casey Frechette
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If you would like to contribute a memory or goodbye to Dr. Robert Dardenne, please email it to usfcrowsnest@gmail.com. 250 words max.
Everything about my teaching that’s good I owe to him. I can only repay him by trying, in some small way, to pass on to my students what he gave to me.
I feel exactly the same, Lisa. Every time I write a comment on a student’s assignment I think of the invaluable comments he’d write on mine. Every time I talk to my students about what “we” will learn in class I’m reminded that I say that because that’s what Bob used to say . . .
Dr. Dardenne was my first professor in the J-school program in 1998, followed by Jay Black and G. Michael Killenberg. He was so easy to talk to and I learned so much about journalism history and all the great writers of his time: Hunter S. Thompson, and so many others. He was so laid back but yet, he cared. I loved our talks at the Tavern at Bayboro, where our class often met after class. I randomly emailed him throughout the years and he always responded with, “I wondered what you were up to.”
I had just emailed him Sept. 25 and he told me he would be retiring in 2014 to pursue working at news websites, maybe. Here is his email response to my question about journalism and career/writing advice, “It’s a whole different journalism world out there. A different teaching world, too. Those are the two main reasons I’m going to try something else. But, if you look at the positive side, journalism is pretty exciting because there are so many things going on. Few of them make money, but that will likely come. The idea, I suppose, is to get in on something that works or will eventually work, and go from there.”
I will miss him. All of us will. Condolences to his wife and son, Rob. I will always remember that bearded smile.