Today, I mourn the loss of my dear friend Dr. Judith Ramaley, who died last week at the age of 85. Judith was a brilliant educator, a fearless leader, a devoted public servant and, to those of us fortunate enough to know her personally, a kind, attentive and extraordinarily generous friend.

Many people knew Judith through her remarkable career in higher education. She led three public universities, including Portland State University, where she served as its sixth president from 1990 to 1997. She was PSU’s first woman president and the first woman to lead a university in Oregon’s state university system. At a time when few women in the United States held college presidencies, Judith had risen through higher education administrative ranks with exceptional skill and lightning speed.

Judith believed that universities should actively improve the communities around them. When she arrived at Portland State, the local newspaper, The Oregonian, had derisively dubbed it “Pretty Sorry University.” She helped raise PSU’s reputation by defining its distinctive role as an urban-serving university, strengthening its connections with the city and adopting “Let Knowledge Serve the City” as an enduring expression of its identity and purpose.

She saw the modern university not as an institution that produced knowledge in isolation and then shared it with the public, but as a partner in a collaborative process of discovery in which the university and community learned together and from one another. She also championed a new approach to undergraduate education that valued students’ lived experiences, connected learning across disciplines and challenged students to apply what they learned to solve “wicked,” real world problems.

That is an extraordinary legacy.

But I knew her simply as Judith.

Judith and I met in 2016 while serving on a City Club of Portland committee studying a state ballot initiative to fund career and technical education. At our first meeting, there she was, tapping out the minutes on her iPad. I would later learn that Judith was an exceptional note taker. We also discovered that we were fellow Capricorns who shared a similar dry sense of humor, and a fondness for asking the uncomfortable, difficult questions. In short, we clicked. In short, we clicked. After the committee completed its work, we stayed in touch, occasionally meeting for dinner and conversation.

When the pandemic arrived in 2020, we moved those visits online and committed to weekly virtual happy hours. Neither of us knew whether the idea would stick, or whether seeing each other every week might prove to be too much. For nearly six years, we rarely missed our standing Monday evening date. Filled with ideas, laughter and observations about the world around us, those conversations became a treasured start to my week.

Judith made time for people. She listened. She engaged. She remembered. Even after decades spent leading universities, advising national organizations and navigating complex organizational politics, in every moment she was always genuinely curious about the person sitting across from her, whoever that might be.

With Judith, you felt heard and that your ideas mattered.

I will remember her warmth, her humor and the quiet generosity of simply showing up for me each week. I know I was only one of many people to whom she regularly gave the gift of her time and presence.

I will miss Judith terribly. I will miss her intelligence, her curiosity, her kindness and our shared propensity to cause what we deemed a little necessary trouble, every once in a while. Most of all, I will miss my friend.

Godspeed, Judith. Monday nights will not be the same without you.