How UD Professors give an Example of Friendship that Students can Follow
A threatening clock hangs above University of Dallas students’ heads, as our agéd families and friends warn us that we will never inhabit communities with this many bright, talented, God-fearing people again.
This warning does empower students to “get out there” and take advantage of UD’s amazing resources, but it’s also a little grim and utilitarian. Our professors themselves offer living proof that post-graduation friendships flower and bear beautiful fruit.
Just as it’s good to be surrounded by examples of mature, flourishing marriages (we have this in spades at UD—seen recently at the Drs. Burns’ Dumb Ox discussion on marriage and frequently at any Church of the Incarnation Sunday Mass), it’s good to be surrounded with examples of mature, flourishing friendships.
I had the opportunity to join Drs. Kambo, Heyne, Berry and Fr. Thomas Esposito for “tea time” on a windy Monday afternoon. Fr. Thomas (BA ‘05) and Dr. Heyne (BA ‘10) are UD alumni, and Heyne and Kambo lived together during grad school at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
The four professors’ combined friendship first coalesced while filming a Jurassic Park-themed promo video with several other professor friends for Groundhog in 2022 (which Fr. Thomas encourages students to watch— “Dr. Heyne is in rugby shorts”).
Dr. Kambo said, “I realized I probably liked Dr. Heyne when he corrupted me by introducing me to cocktail making.”
Dr. Berry said that in 2021, he “had an office right by the water fountain…that’s how I started talking to these two guys, ‘cause they would feel awkward just filling up their water.”
Drs. Kambo and Heyne strengthened their friendship as UD professors by often going to get coffee, Dr. Kambo said “Dr. Heyne requires several doses of caffeine a day, [and] I needed to accompany him across the mall so he’d actually feel safe and secure.”
Like their students, they love discussing ideas for papers and classes and frequently engage in debates with one another. Dr. Heyne admitted, “Usually, I just ask questions.” Fr. Thomas commented that “that’s virtue signaling” and Dr. Kambo requested that the newspaper “put that in scare quotes.”
Dr. Heyne, often the butt of the joke among the four, remained a good sport: “I’m used to being the youngest.”
“Any attention is good,” Fr. Thomas quipped.
Asked what he appreciates about his friends, Dr. Kambo said, “Every time I hear [Dr. Berry] speak publicly, I’m like, ‘This man’s a prophet. I need to learn how to talk like this in public.’ Dr. Heyne just cares so much; it moves me. Because of these guys, my relationships with students come easier to me.”
Dr. Berry responded, “Dr. Kambo is very quick on his feet, as you can see.” (“Physically, too?” the interviewer asked.) “Y’know, the magnanimous man doesn’t run.”
Dr. Berry praised Dr. Heyne “for his eagerness and fearlessness,” and Dr. Heyne appreciated how “Fr. Thomas really did inspire in me an attentiveness to greeting students around campus. It’s a way to engage students that can kind of make them feel more comfortable speaking in the classroom.”
Dr. Heyne said he also loves “the joy and energy and wonderful laugh of Dr. Berry,” and Dr. Berry reciprocated the sentiment by remarking, “Wow, the thing he likes about me is that I’m loud.”
Dr. Berry added, “While students have given this little grouping a name (The Tetrarchy), the faculty camaraderie is one of the things I love the most about UD. To list only a few, I love hanging out with the Drs. Burns, who I’ve known since I graduated college, Dr. West, Dr. Moran and Dr. Eitel, arguing about Moby Dick long past midnight with Fr. Stephen… the list just goes on.”
The hope for a flourishing, joyful academic community doesn’t dissipate after graduation!
Friendships, Dr. Kambo believes, are “this intellectual life that people don’t talk about as often…sometimes people have this image of the intellectual life as a very solitary thing, this mawkish figure thinking these deep thoughts, but it’s nice talking about things you’re thinking about, things you’re teaching, in the context of a friendship, [where] it’s not for research.”
It takes time to become friends with someone, and it takes time to intentionally prove your affection to a friend, but anyone with even one true friend will testify that this time is worth it. If finals have got you in a knot, take some tea time with your friends. Sure, it isn’t a very utilitarian use of your limited minutes, but Fr. Thomas would like to remind you that you’re only human; “human beings need friendship, and it’s a joy to have companions on the way.”