Doetkott’s legacy lives on

   Chapman students will have to find their voices without the help of Richard Doetkott sporting his white suit and signature Mickey salute.

   Placing both fists on either side of your head to make Mickey Mouse ears became the secret handshake for anyone who took Doetkott's introduction to public speaking class, one of the most popular in the department.

   Doetkott, 75, a communications professor and one of the faculty's longest serving members, died from a heart attack Dec. 21. He had undergone a bypass surgery for another heart attack about a week earlier.

  "With him gone I don't think that a lot of the old Chapman University is left," said Lance Lockwood, a speech communication professor at Santa Ana College who taught with Doetkott for 10 years and wrote a textbook with him. "Dick was part of that old system of constant communication and not only caring about what is happening in his students' lives in the classroom but outside as well."

   During his 47-year career at Chapman, many students knew him as the speech god for his memorable classes and ability to help students feel comfortable speaking to an audience of 150 peers.

    Alumna Sarah Van Zanten remembers her first day with Doetkott when students were told to give a standing ovation for his grand entrance, complete with lights and a fog machine.

   "It was just relaxed, the whole attitude," she said. "He just broke down the parts of public speaking to make it not so scary."

   Doetkott was also known for what he called the Faculty Troubleshooter, for which he would set up a booth on campus for hours, to make himself available to students. Doetkott offered help or advice. He continued until 2010, when the administration reduced his class to 30 students.  

   "This was a student service, which gave any student at Chapman the opportunity to have a senior professor go to bat for [him or her] on anything from a parking ticket to inappropriate behavior by a faculty member toward a student," Doetkott wrote in an email to The Panther in 2009.

   Rachel Shatz, a freshman communications studies major, was in Doetkott's last class Dec. 12. Doetkott became ill during finals week, preventing him from administering most of his final exams.

   "Knowing we were in the last class he ever taught, it's weird," Shatz said. "It makes the last time seeing him seem really special."

   Doetkott balanced his laid-back side with professionalism, said Allen Levy, assistant professor of communication studies.

   Doetkott spearheaded Chapman's chapter of the American Association of University Professors and sat on the Faculty Personnel Council. As a co-founder and chair of communication studies, Doetkott was persistent in obtaining resources for his department.

   "He fought like a pitbull for money, for faculty, for better facilities," Levy said.

   Doetkott was born March 2, 1936 in St. Cloud, Minn. He is survived by his wife Pat, a former instructor of communications, and his daughter Wendy Rogan.

   A celebration of Doetkott's life will be held in Memorial Hall March 3 at 2 p.m.