Nelson W. Polsby, one of the world’s leading experts on American politics and the U.S. Congress, died Feb. 6 at his home in Berkeley. He was 72. From his early work on community power to his most recent book on the transformation of the House of Representatives into an intensely partisan body, Polsby redefined the understanding of the American political system. Polsby, who was the Heller Professor of Political Science, joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1967 and never left. He was well know as an adviser to numerous graduate students who went on to become prominent scholars.

From 1988 to 1999, Polsby served as director of Cal’s Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS), creating a warm and supportive environment for graduate students. Afternoon tea in a comfortable chair was a staple for eager students.

Polsby was born Oct. 25, 1934, in Norwich, Conn. Living in Washington, D.C. as a teenager further fueled Polsby’s interest in politics. He went on to receive his BA in political science at Johns Hopkins University in 1956, a master’s degree in sociology from Brown University a year later, and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1958 and 1961, respectively.

Polsby served as managing editor of the discipline’s leading journal, the American Political Science Review. He held two Guggenheim Fellowships, and fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the Brookings Institution. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Public Administration. He also received the Yale Medal, an award for outstanding service by alumni that is the highest honor given by the university’s alumni association.

Polsby won nearly every award and honor political science has to offer. In 2002, the American Political Science Association (APSA) honored him with the Frank Goodnow Award for distinguished service to the profession. During the 2005 APSA annual meeting, there was a special panel entitled "Nelson Polsby’s Congress."

Polsby is survived by his wife; three children, Lisa Susan Polsby of Naperville, Ill., Emily A. Polsby of Berkeley, and Daniel R. Polsby of Mountain View; his mother, Edythe Woolf Polsby Salzberger of Washington, D.C.; his brothers, Daniel D. Polsby of Fairfax, Va., and Allen I. Polsby of Bethesda, Md.; and two grandchildren.

Even those of you who did not know him lost a friend this past January, when the dean at UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering, A. Richard Newton, passed away at the age of 55. Rich was an immensely reassuring presence on the Berkeley campus, like an overarching hemisphere of foliage whose shading canopy we, his colleagues, came to rely on as an almost natural feature of our landscape. When he was unexpectedly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, then died just a few weeks later, it was for us as if some grand and reassuring tree had blown over, leaving a huge empty space against the sky.

Rich was my dear friend and both of us had young children. But, he was also a fellow dean and co-conspirator, the sort of person who found good ideas irresistible. He was someone you turned to when you knew that an idea, project or initiative "should" be done, but that at the same time, in the context of the university bureaucracy if would be difficult, if not impossible, to bring off. But fueled by a seemingly inexhaustible well-spring of innate enthusiasm, energy, entrepreneurial drive and dedication, I never heard Rich naysay a good idea, no matter how far-fetched it might seem at first. I can still hear him blithely say in his Australian brogue, "We could do that!" He was the patron saint of difficult, but worthwhile, causes.

Somehow, his exuberance managed to root new and imaginative ideas, coax expensive buildings to rise from the ground, make new programs become incarnate, and, perhaps most important, magnetized the best and most talented people in the world to the university’s call. Rich was an engineer, and frankly, I am not even sure I can tell you what he did when it came to his scientific research and scholarship, something, in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) that had to do with EDA (Electronic Design Automation) and MMS (mixed mode simulation.) A regular at events such as the World Economic Forum, he was always welcomed as a global thinker on issues of technology and globalization.

But, it didn’t matter to either him or me that I was a technological neophyte, because where Rich connected with people was in his devotion to a larger idea: that technology, science, journalism, law, social science ... any field of academic endeavor, should seek ways to serve the real world.

Rich believed with a passion that it was the responsibility, in fact the obligation, of a great research university to serve the public by applying its brainpower to the problems of people around the world. What he wanted was for all us to find ways to harness our brains, brawn, money, entrepreneurial energy, research abilities, and dedication to solving the problems of our besieged world. Rich was an evangelist for academic relevance. He viewed universities as one of the most important pieces of civil society real estate in our country and the logical locus of innovative problem solving. For him, there was no more appropriate task for a "public" university, such as Berkeley, than to serve the public.

This was the mandate that Rich took as his own and that he literally died trying to fulfill. In his incredible energy, commitment and drive, there was a welcome impatience with cant and prevarication, and not a whiff of "the ivory tower" anywhere about this gladiator for the interests of the people. His greatest gift to this campus—indeed, to the state, the country, even the world—are two unusual projects:

The Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center is engaged in genetically engineering bacteria to produce inexpensive new drugs, such as the low-cost, anti-malarial, herbal remedy artimisinin, and new clean sources of fuel from cellulose to address climate change issues. CITRIS, or, The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society project, seeks to "provide solutions to grand-challenge social and commercial problems affecting the quality of life of Californians" and others in the world. I am gladdened to know that its new $100 million home is now rising from the ground just outside my office window. These are Newton’s offerings—fitting tombstones on this campus for their grand progenitor.

At dusk on the day he died, I walked by the CITRIS construction site and felt a wave of acute sadness. But then, as I thought about what an extraordinary guiding light this legacy of his will be for the rest of us, my spirits lifted. "Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night. And God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ And there was light." So wrote Alexander Pope in his "Epitaph: Intended for Isaac Newton," Rich’s namesake.

Rich Newton was also a generator of a light. Those of us who knew him, worked with him and loved him, became shamelessly accustomed to relying on that great light. But, it was not a God-given light. It was a light generated by a dynamo of a person whose true north was connecting his College of Engineering and the university to the world.

In describing the laws of motion, Isaac Newton himself wrote in his "Principia Mathematica" that, "Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it."

Rich did not allow a "state of rest." He was, in the best Newtonian sense, one of those "forces" that compel change. Now, we are left to see if we can find ways to become such forces ourselves.

Remembered by Orville Schell, dean of Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. (Reprinted with permission from the San Francisco Chronicle.)

George Hamilton Link ’61, former president of the California Alumni Association and student body president, died Dec. 14 in Los Angeles. He was 67.

After graduating from Cal, he went on to receive his law degree from Harvard Law School and joined the firm of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison in San Francisco in 1964. He was a partner of that firm from 1970 to 2001, managing partner of its Los Angeles office from 1976 to 1992, and managing general partner of the entire firm from 1992 to 1996. During a distinguished law practice, he represented the defense in litigation involving silicone breast implants, latex gloves, cell phones, and diet drugs. He also represented Wells Fargo Bank, among other clients. His firm hired Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley after he left office.

He was a trustee and vice president of the California Historical Society, a board member and chair of the Pacific Rim Advisory Council, a trustee of the Berkeley Foundation Junior Statesmen, a member of the board of governors of the United Way, a member of the board of directors of the Ancient Egypt Research Associates, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and a member of the American, California, and Los Angeles bar associations. In private life, he was a member of the California and Jonathan Clubs in Los Angeles and the Bohemian Club in San Francisco.

Author, Republican, rancher, farmer, he was a man with many interests and talents. A year ago he completed writing the as-yet-unpublished book Empress of the North, on the life of one of the earliest queens of England.

He was a wonderful friend, camp mate, and drinking buddy to countless companions at the Bohemian Grove and elsewhere, and periodically an architect, general contractor, and philanthropist.

Mr. Link married the former Betsy Leland in 1968 and they had a loving marriage for the remaining 38 years of his life. They are the parents of twin sons Thomas Hamilton Link (Sheridan) and Christopher Leland Link (Kristi), and grandparents of Charles Morris Link, Carter Leland Link, Thomas Hamilton Link, Jr., and Henry Russell Link. He also is survived by his mother, Corrie Evans Link Maloney of Sutter Creek, and his sister, Mary Ellen Link Brown of Danville.

The Class of 1961 will begin raising funds this spring for a memorial to Link.