James V. Elliott

The Great Professors

James Elliott, Political Science

Keith Hagel, A67, knew that his political science professor, James Vance Elliott, would always find time to talk. “Nearly a half-century later, I remember Dr. Elliott most for conversations in his office, where the door was always open,” says Hagel, a former editor of Tufts Weekly who went on to a career as a newspaper and newswire editor. “He had a lit pipe, a warm laugh, and, most important, real attention to whatever we might be talking about, usually life rather than academics.”

Elliott taught political science at Tufts from 1951 until his retirement in 1993 and chaired the department from 1956 to 1983. After graduating from Boston University in 1943, Elliott became a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, arriving in Normandy just after D-Day. He was severely wounded while commanding a rifle platoon in eastern France. After the war, he earned a master’s degree in government studies from Boston University and another master’s and a doctorate in political science from Harvard.

The faculty resolution on his retirement noted: “He taught fourteen different courses in his years at Tufts but none more brilliantly than his instruction in political thought—ancient, medieval, modern, and American. Here his teaching is marked by the scholarly virtues of thoughtfulness, thoroughness, and judiciousness.”

On top of that, he was popular with students. He received several honors for teaching, and the Class of 1964 dedicated its yearbook to him. A university award bears his name today. “Dr. Elliott,” says Hagel, “was not the most charismatic professor I had at Tufts, but he was solid and caring, the real thing. For me, he was a mentor and a mensch.” Elliott died in 2005 at the age of eighty-six.

—PHIL PRIMACK, A70