It’s Time

Paul Fabian Mullen was an AASU professor. He was an accomplished lawyer and a former assistant attorney general for the state of West Virginia. He was incredibly smart and incisive and what's more, he was my friend. He lived across the street from me.

Dr. Mullen was found dead in his apartment on December 24; a bitterly hard reminder of mortality and loss to receive before Christmas. He showed me that a lawyer can take many different paths with their careers and still hold true to their ideals; he reinforced my political and social beliefs and constantly exposed me to new ideas and solutions and points of view that I had never taken the time to consider before.

He was a great man and his sudden death came as quite a terrible blow. I have lost a friend and a mentor—a guide to how I may want my own career to unfold. But this isn't about my singular grief. Not only are there others, friends of mine, that are suffering through this loss, perhaps even more greatly than myself, there is now a hole where there should be a brilliant professor for future classes of students.

I count myself among the lucky ones. I had the fortune to know Dr. Mullen for years, take classes from him, take advice from him, shoot the breeze with him—no other students will ever have that same wonderful opportunity that I had, and it fills me with a terrible sense of sorrow.

The university has lost a true asset, not in just an academic sense, but in the form of an educator truly dedicated to their work and to his students. I want to erect statues, establish scholarships, hell, I'd even take a plaque, as long as we do something to honor his memory, and what he did for some of the students of this school.

I hope this is one thing the typical AASU apathy does not touch. E-mail me so we can get this underway. Future students and professors alike should be able to know about an accomplished, intelligent man who knew how to work, how to have fun and who did precisely what he wanted to do with his life. They can be inspired by his example.

The time for morning my friend is over, the time for celebrating him has begun.