In Memoriam: Professor Emeritus Christian Soe
Professor Emeritus Dr. Christian Soe recently passed away. Below is a tribute written by Professor Emeritus Dr. Ron Schmidt along with a memorial card written by Dr. Soe’s wife, Louise Soe. If you would like to memorialize Dr. Soe, please contribute to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
The department of political science is sad to report the passing of Professor Christian Soe, a member of our department since 1967. He became a full professor in 1978 and retired as a professor emeritus in 2001.
Christian joined our department from his graduate studies at the Free University of Berlin, where he received his Ph.D. summa cum laude in 1972. A native of Denmark, his mother moved the family to British Columbia after being widowed, and Christian completed high school and his undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia, before going to Berlin for his Ph.D. studies. He was hired primarily to teach courses in comparative politics, especially Western European politics, and he did so with distinction throughout his career. During his first semester on campus, though, as part of a four-course teaching load he was assigned to teach first-year American Government, having never taken a course on the subject, and having observed it only from afar. As was his manner, he buckled down, staying up to all hours of the night, even sleeping on his desk, prepping to teach a course on this very strange system of government, and he emerged from the experience as a gifted and beloved teacher, not only in comparative politics but in American politics, and political theory as well. Students from first year to graduate levels took to his talent for wrapping political knowledge into stories seen from a human and humane perspective. Unusually available for office hour consultations, he would work tirelessly with students having difficulties, trying to help them improve their academic skills, as well as their life coping skills. His colleagues also benefitted consistently from Christian’s generous spirit and expertise as a teacher and scholar, and he provided mentorship to a number of junior colleagues throughout his career on the campus.
Possessed of insatiable curiosity, Christian was interested in virtually any subject, but loved nothing more than an invigorating discussion of contemporary public affairs. Many of his colleagues have remarked on his ready smile and outgoing and welcoming demeanor. He always had time for a chat and loved telling stories of his many travels around Europe, as well as stories he had read or heard about.
Despite his gregarious manner, Christian Soe was a hard-working scholar of German politics who brought great distinction to himself and to the CSULB campus. He was actively involved in multiple professional organizations, providing leadership to comparative politics sub-groups of the American and Western political science associations, the German Studies Association, and other organizations as well. Among his many scholarly publications, he was co-editor and chapter author of five highly regarded edited books on German politics, and – most remarkably – editor of twenty-five consecutive yearly revised editions of the most widely used introductory anthology on comparative politics in American college classrooms, Comparative Politics (McGraw-Hill/Dushkin Inc., from 1983 to 2007). His exemplary scholarship on Germany’s Free Democratic Party led to his invitation to travel widely and frequently in Germany, giving lectures, observing elections, and participating in numerous research seminars. He was invited to be part of a team organized to observe the first elections in East Germany, following the demise of the Berlin Wall and the integration of Germany.
The connections he made in these trips also enabled him to bring another mark of distinction to the CSULB campus, the bi-annual Pacific Workshop on German Affairs, a major three-day event that brought to the CSULB campus scholars on German public affairs from all over the globe, including some of Germany’s leading scholars of politics. These gatherings began in 1983 and occurred every two years until 2001, a period during which Germany went through some of the most consequential changes in the last half of the twentieth century. In addition to organizing and hosting the workshops, Christian did the fund-raising, garnering enough funds to bring all the scholars on the program to the event at no cost to themselves. One of the leading polling experts in Germany writes:
“He invited guests whom others would not have had the courage to ask. Nobody could say ‘no’ to Christian because he was a person you could not say ‘no’ to. …[in the late 1980s his conference included] east Germans coming with the ‘watch dogs’ of the SED party and unqualified party ranks. Nobody could have done this other than Christian.”
Besides being a renowned scholar, Christian Soe was an exemplary academic citizen. He was a quiet leader in our department, whose wise counsel was always sought by his colleagues when making difficult decisions. He served as the department’s graduate coordinator for over a decade, successfully spearheading several major reforms of the M.A. program. In that role, he helped numerous graduate students complete their degrees and provided those who wanted to pursue PhD degrees with advocacy and personal mentoring. He chaired and/or served on a plethora of committees at the department, college and university levels, including the University Graduate Council. And for the university library, he was instrumental in bringing to its archives the collected papers of Dorothy Healy, a highly controversial Los Angeles-based leader of the U.S. Communist Party during the 1940s to 1970s.
Throughout his long career and life, Christian Soe loved the CSULB campus. Living with his beloved family only a couple of blocks from the campus, his children practically grew up on the campus as he frequently brought them with him to the department and to the campus’ recreational facilities, the university library, the art museum, the Japanese Garden, and more. His passing leaves a large hole in our hearts, but many, many fond memories.
