UNH Today

David Hebert, professor emeritus of education, served UNH from 1967 until his retirement in 2013. He passed away on October 15, 2022, at the age of 82.

Hebert was a one-of-a-kind educator who influenced and enriched the professional and personal lives of hundreds of counselor educators and mental health professionals over a 46-year career in UNH's graduate Counseling Program, eventually serving as the first graduate coordinator for the department.

Here, long-time UNH colleague Todd DeMitchell remembers his friend.

Remembering David J. Hebert, Ph.D.

David Hebert received the Department of Education’s Kimball Faculty Fellow Award in 2007. The title of his Kimball Faculty Fellow Lecture was "Remember the Heroes in Your Life." I remember Dave with a sense of loss at his not being with us and a sense of gratitude that he was in my life and will always holds a place in it.

It is not just the positions that he held, the accolades of official recognition of Kimball Faculty Fellow or the department’s only recipient of the University Award — the Jean Brierly Award for Teaching Excellence (1996), or the contributions to department faculty governance that are remembered. Those once written remain in the memory of computers and are placed in paper files that are seldom accessed in the memories of the people who know him.

I remember Dave. He was a special friend to me, a comfortable companion, an excellent counsel when I needed his help who unstintingly leant me his advice as well an understanding ear to just let me talk, and he became an insightful co-author on ethics and counselor preparation. His deep concern for his students was evident in his small and large professional decisions alike. He hewed close to them as his north star. And he never strayed from that course. His reputation as a gifted teacher was well earned and part of the lore of the Counseling Program graduates. He once described teaching in the following way, “The good teachers you remember aren’t necessarily the ones who made things easy. They made you work hard, they were fair, and they brought you to a point where you never thought you’d go.” That was Dave.

The quiet man from northern Maine chose to walk lightly but left lasting footprints in the lives of others. I remember Dave and I miss Dave.

—Todd A. DeMitchell, professor emeritus of education law and labor, University of New Hampshire

A celebration of David Hebert's life will take place at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his honor to the Appalachian Mountain Club, 10 City Square Boston MA 02129.

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