KC Mayor Berkley’s kindness made this shy college student feel like she mattered | Opinion

Once a month, professor Jerzy Hauptmann would lead a group of Park College political science students to the meeting of the Kansas City Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration. The meetings were held at Washington Street Station.

As we entered the meeting room, Dr. Hauptmann ordered the students, “Sit with someone you don’t know.” Our attendance was not so much to learn about the topic of the program for the day, but rather to become acquainted with the civic employees and elected officials who attended the meetings. These important contacts led to letters of recommendation for graduate school, employment references and sometimes even job offers.

I was shy and afraid to approach a table of strangers already engrossed in conversations. So, I developed a strategy of finding an empty table and waiting to see who might come to sit with me. On one occasion as I nervously sat by myself, Kansas City Mayor Richard Berkley was suddenly standing beside me. “May I join you?” he asked politely. I was politically aware enough to recognize him and felt honored — overwhelmed, really. “Please do,” I said.“

You must be one of Jerzy’s students,” Mayor Berkley said. I introduced myself and told him yes, I was.

“What are you studying this semester?” he asked.

I said I was taking administrative theory, and he listened with interest as I told him of the case study we had discussed in the most recent class.

Susan Downing, the beautiful, brainy and bossy older sister of my best friend, Lisa, approached. Susan had a master’s degree in public administration and was working as an aide to a Kansas City Council member. “Well, well, how do you rate having lunch with the mayor?” she asked me, in a bossy older sister sort of way.

“I asked if I could join her,” Mayor Berkley said. I smiled at Susan, in a sassy little sister sort of way. “Would you like to join us?”

Susan sat down and soon others filled out our table. I don’t remember the rest of the conversation or the topic of the meeting that day. I only remember Mayor Berkley making a shy college student feel important.

Some might call that just being a skilled politician. But I think it is a sign of being a good and kind man.