University of Rochester Alumni Citation to Faculty Award for Richard Fenno, 1976.
A student of the institutions of American government, and most especially a student of Congress—indeed, the foremost student of Congress—Richard F. Fenno, Jr., has taught hundreds of students how to observe, how to study, and how to understand that institution. His scholarship has illuminated the structure of incentives and constraints within which the struggle over power and policy is conducted. He has brought to the analysis of that struggle a sympathetic understanding which makes it comprehensible in human terms without diminishing its awesomeness.
Dick Fenno has obtained entry to the workings of Congress by persuading the Congressmen themselves to open the doors. His sensitivity to the humanity of those in the political arena has won their trust. His wit, charm and warmth have won their candor. The Congressmen have found in his personal integrity good warrant for the entry afforded him. Their respect for his integrity has held open the doors to Congress for his students, both graduate and undergraduate. Many scholarly careers have been launched, and many lived shaped by the entry thus gained.
A superb classroom lecturer, Dick Fenno has never allowed the boundaries of the classroom to limit his discourse with students. Precious as time is to an active research scholar, Dick Fenno has always had time for students. To observe him in discussion with students or in his office or in an informal seminar in Washington is to witness teaching in one of its richest and most vibrant forms. With a flashing smile and a penetrating eye, sophistry, and pretense are cut away, and an appreciation of honest scholarship flourishes. Children enter the discourse; young men and women emerge.
For his scholarship and his pedagogy, we are all in Richard Fenno’s debt. He has written definitive works on government, and especially on Congress. He has founded and nurtured a magnificent internship program in Washington D.C. for our undergraduates. His graduate students have become leaders in the study of American government. Yet what springs most readily to mind at the mention of Dick Fenno is his character. David Rhode, one of his former students, and now a fellow scholar, described him best when he wrote:
Dick Fenno is one of the most decent persons I have ever encountered. His
behavior has always been an example of the proper way for one human to
deal with another. Will Rogers said that he never met a man he didn’t like. I
have never met a person who didn’t like Richard Fenno.
In recognition of his contributions to scholarship, and in gratitude for the qualities of mind and character which he has brought to the life of the university, it is with great pleasure that the University Alumni Council awards to Richard F. Fenno Jr. this Alumni Citation to Faculty.
May 6, 1976
