Dean's Corner

When I first heard the news of former graduate dean Orlando Taylor's transition from this life to the realm of ancestors, I admit that my first thought was a bit of disbelief. I'm clear that no one escapes death, but there are some people who walk among us for a while with so much authority that it's hard to imagine the day when they won't anymore. Dr. Orlando Taylor was one of those people. He was a force of nature. Tall in stature and taller in ability, he filled the room in all the ways that mattered. His voice was brilliantly clear, the timbre always perfect for the occasion.

When I was a graduate student at Howard, he was among the intellectual giants the graduate students marveled at. Would we ever be that smart, that confident, that personable? If you dared to introduce yourself to him, the next time he saw you, he'd call you by name. Part of that gift was memory; the other part was care. What was clear to us was that he cared about us and, importantly too, he cared about the work we would do, the people we would become. What I also remember is that, as busy as I know he must have been, he was also accessible to graduate students—but only when we were invested in thinking or being excellent. He had little interest in frivolities. Life was too short not forego a chance to make a lasting impact. The stakes were too high to waste his time or ours.

When I returned to Howard as a faculty member, he was encouraging and always at the ready to provide opportunities for me to learn more about Howard and about graduate education more generally. Part of the reason I left LSU to return to Howard was because I was convinced that graduate education at Howard (at least in English) was second to none, and that was in greatest part a function of a remarkable faculty. But it was also in some small, an important part of function of Dr. Taylor's leadership. A few years ago, when I became interim dean, he was among the first congratulatory emails I received. Then we had lunch shortly after I was named the first female dean. I shooed him when the calendar invite said, "Deans' lunch." He saw me as a colleague—a fellow graduate dean. I saw him as my dean and a mentor—a guide among guides. Both things were true at once.

A few hours after commencement 2023 ended, he sent me a note: "Congratulations for another successful year as leader of the Graduate School. I enjoyed ... the commencement telecast and was thrilled to see the continued success of PhD productivity at Howard University. You and your colleagues are to be commended for sustaining - and advancing - the reputation of the HU Graduate School." The care persisted; it persists. And it's because of that care that I dedicate this Dean's Corner to my dean, Dean Orlando Taylor. With some distance now between the shock and the awe, I do it not with disbelief but with gratitude for all that he did and was.

Rest easy, Dean, and live on.... 

Dana A. Williams, PhD | Graduate Dean