Tim Kaufman-Osborn, Politics

by Andrew Braff, '00

For me, limiting a statement to 300 words about anything is asking a Herculean task. It seemed fitting, therefore, that I recount the contributions Tim Kaufman-Osborn made to my Whitman and post-Whitman experience. After all, he was a primary source of my “literary proliferation disease.”*

Tim is Whitman’s own “political Socrates.” He mesmerizes young minds with his critical nature, fills their thoughts with sociopolitical theories, molds them into gadflies, and then infects them with this disease — a symptom of which is human compulsiveness to sort everything out on paper. A side effect tends to be the production of large amounts of tangential minutiae, of which I certainly generated my share.

Tim’s inquisitive personality and teaching style compose the mainstay of a liberal arts education. They draw students into garnering knowledge, not as a means to an end, but an end in itself. For those seeking instruction in “real world” politics, Tim integrates detailed descriptions — torturing regicides, how big people with clubs can be necessary for political stability, Oliver North, and Yertle the Turtle — into his theoretical lectures. I have experienced many parallels working for Congress, though I have yet to see any turtles.

Tim’s critical nature and knowledge gleaned through his classes profoundly impact the way I approach my job. As a “policy wonk,” I must view legislation from many different angles and on multiple levels, requiring the versatility of a liberal arts education to traverse the spectrum of policy areas assigned to me. I am also tasked with drafting hundreds of one-to-two page position statements spanning these complex topics. Every time I struggle to crunch information into this limit, I think of Tim and how after we met, short and simple answers no longer exist.

The value of a liberal arts education is found in this realization that there are no short or simple answers, only more intricate connections and deeper pools of history and knowledge. Many thanks, Tim, for being a large part of this realization. I trust that others share my gratitude and the “disease” many of us now possess.

* For an example of this “disease,” see A. Braff, “Exitus Acta Probat,” Honors Thesis: Whitman College, May, 2000. Don’t fret, this is the only footnote.

Timothy Kaufman-Osborn, a member of the Whitman College faculty since 1982, holds the Baker Ferguson Chair of Politics and Leadership. He received the 1999 Robert Y. Fluno Award for Distinguished Teaching in Social Sciences.