Harry W. Stonecipher, professor emeritus of journalism at SIUC, who died on Dec. 26, 2004, was not only a great teacher-scholar, he was also a remarkable human being with a profound sense of integrity and generosity.

To me especially, he was an unforgettable fatherly mentor”in every sense of the phrase-caring, inspirational, and ready with words of wisdom and encouragement.

In the early 1980s, when I was failing in his media law class, he went to extra lengths to invite me into his office for a private conference.

His heart-to-heart advice to me:read more about U.S. law and come back. I consider it life-changing because it has defined my scholarly career ever since.

True to his reputation as a demanding but fair-minded teacher, Stonecipher wanted to give me a second chance. More importantly, his willingness to risk the unknown on my behalf as a foreign student speaks volumes about him as a person.

Throughout his 15-year tenure as an SIUC journalism professor, Stonecipher remained relentless in pursuing the highest standards of excellence in teaching and research. Never did he, a perfectionist, settle for the mediocre. In the spring of 1982, for example, he made me rewrite my term paper five times before he accepted it for grading. No doubt he was the custodian of the best.

In his 1995 memoir, “Meaningful Connections,” Stonecipher writes that I was one of his “most hardworking” students. But I have to counter that he was the most hardworking professor I ever had as a student.

For me it was a rare honor and privilege to become an Stonecipher’s advisee. His hands-on and meticulous mentoring of his graduate students was in a class by itself. His discipline in returning exams and papers to students promptly was legendary.

Case on point:during my visit to Seoul in the summer of 1983, Stonecipher assigned me to do a three credit research paper on press freedom in South Korea. Over a four week period in July, I airmailed him my term paper of 270-plus pages.

When I returned from Seoul in early August, he handed back my term paper immediately. He had read every word, every sentence, and every paragraph carefully, while notating copious style and content comments on the margins.

Stonecipher was a role model for me and others for his seemingly unlimited generosity as an individual. When I graduated from SIUC with a Ph.D. in 1985, Stonecipher sent me a check for my graduation gift.

When I first saw the check, I was totally overwhelmed. Never did I feel that I would deserve that kind of large-hearted graduation gift from Stonecipher. Indeed, I should have thanked him for his pro bono service as my dissertation adviser after retirement. My wife and I were so deeply touched, and we cried.

Stonecipher was almost unparalleled for his first-rate scholarship. His shyness and fear of immodesty probably discouraged him from discussing it himself publicly.

Unless I had suggested, Stonecipher would not have noted in his “Meaningful Connections” a well-deserved recognition of his influential contributions to First Amendment scholarship. His national stature as a leading media law teacher-scholar was undisputed.

In March of 1989, I requested advice on mass communication law from Donald Gillmor, the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota, who was often called the “dean” of U.S. media law, but Gillmor said that I, as Stonecipher’s former student, would not need his advice on how to teach media law.

Professor Michael Singletary of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville recently called Stonecipher “an inspiration” to many legal scholars in the United States. He added that Stonecipher’s work will survive another generation.

On Dec. 31, 2004, the Southern Illinoisan stated that Stonecipher “touched many lives through his work and the ripple effect of his teaching will continue to spread for many, many years.”

The Southern Illinoisan’s “thumbs up” note on Stonecipher couldn’t be more appropriate. He epitomized a committed teacher-scholar and a person of unimpeachable integrity and character. So he most likely will serve as an enduring lesson for many of us college professors, who wish to do better what we’re doing in and outside the classroom.

Kyu Ho Youm, who was an M.A. and Ph.D. student under Harry W. Stonecipher’s supervision at the SIUC School of Journalism in 1980-85,holds the Jonathan Marshall First Amendment Chair at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. This column is a revised version of the eulogy he delivered at Stonecipher’s funeral services in Carbondale on Dec. 30, 2004.