Now, as he retires from full-time teaching after 56 years — the longest tenure in school history — his legacy stretches far beyond the classroom.
McBride became a teacher because he loved helping others learn. At first, inspired by Sputnik and the Space Race, he studied chemistry and math at Purdue in Indiana. However, his mentor, Professor Michael Gehlen, directed his attention to political science and history while nurturing McBride’s passion for the Cold War and current events.
“Russia was on everybody's mind,” McBride said. “I wanted to know how it worked. So I was able to do research with Gehlen, we co-authored an article, and that got me started.”
An opening at Whittier and the promise of warmer weather drew McBride west, and he stayed on the campus not only because of his fellow faculty, but because he could watch the students blossom. Some even returned to teach alongside him, like Katie Simonian and Melissa Samarin.
“I got to present Samarin to the Board of Trustees when she had won a Nixon fellowship — she was clearly one of the best students I've ever had,” McBride said.
Some of his fondest memories are presenting his daughter, Jennifer, with an outstanding student award, being present for Erin Clancy ’07 to receive the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award for her role in the evacuation of the Syrian Civil Defense from Syria in 2016, winning the first Harry W. Nerhood Teaching Excellence Award in 1977, and watching Kacey Whitney ’19 make a Willie Mays-style catch in a tournament-winning softball game.
McBride relishes how Whittier gave him the freedom to teach a variety of courses — more than 50 over his career. Standouts include From Russia with Feeling, which evolved from Brezhnev to Putin over his four decades of teaching it, and Normative Political Theory, which touches on the musings of Plato and Aristotle.
Yet the program that forged his deepest ties was Model United Nations, preparing students for the annual Model UN of the Far West conference in San Francisco. Whittier has hosted the conference, creating agendas, facilitating staffing and logistics, 11 times over the last 32 years. The conference’s experiential learning has students playing the role of diplomats, learning to negotiate with each other as they improve writing skills and form relationships.
“Whittier has been able to add to the realism of it, because many of the students who help run the conference have had internships at the UN, and many of them go on to careers with nongovernmental organizations,” said McBride, who himself spends summer months working at the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees in New York.
His other accomplishments outside of the classroom include serving as an advisor to the Lancer Society and Palmer Society for more than 40 years and as director of study abroad for 25 years.
While he gave his “last lecture” in the fall, McBride isn’t quite saying goodbye. He’ll teach International Relations in the fall and International Organizations in the spring. Poets will also be able to see him as the assistant softball coach and associate director of the Institute for Baseball Studies.
In honor of McBride’s legacy, people are encouraged to contribute to the McBride Scholarship for International Relations and Public Service.
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