The Gift of Knowing Dan

SUSAN KRINSKY

Associate Dean for Student Affairs

It’s been a difficult season for many reasons, but the reason I’m going to write about is the sudden and unexpected loss of our friend, Dan Bernstine. I was lucky. I got to talk to him almost every day, I got to travel with him, and he had to be nice to me because I was the Board chair. Of course, I know that he would have been nice to me anyway, because he was nice to everybody.

I think every single one of us who ever met Dan learned just how nice he was. He had a gift not just for remembering our names, but remembering who we were, what was going on in our lives, what our concerns were. In fact, I’m not sure it was a matter of remembering as much as it was an ability to get to know and understand other people.

One of the benefits of my role at LSAC is that so many people who knew Dan have told me stories—stories of casual invitations to sit down and chat, or have lunch, or have a drink, even if they’d never spoken before. Stories of having asked Dan for advice and knowing that Dan’s advice was solid and thoughtful. Stories of being included, of being respected, of being valued.

I have missed Dan every single day. Every day, something happens that results in my thinking, or even saying out loud, “I wonder what Dan would think about this.” But what I’ve come to realize is that I often know what Dan would think or say or do, and I find myself comparing my own reactions to what Dan might have said. He was the kind of leader who would wait for you to ask his opinion and who would never insist on a particular path. There was a lot of back-and-forth, and in the end he wouldn’t impose his opinion on anyone else. He expected you make a decision, and he trusted you to make a well-reasoned one. If you needed help, he was there.

One of the things I said to the LSAC staff when I met with them on the Monday after Dan’s death is that he helped to build and maintain a very strong organization with a very strong staff. He knew that they didn’t need him to keep doing the wonderful work that they do. He was like that—he had confidence in people. As our Board member, Jack Miller, has said, “Dan was both good-hearted and clearheaded, and one trait never overrode the other.” We are all very fortunate to have known him.