Colleagues and friends say Verba’s thoughtful demeanor and constant stream of congenial quips on the tip of his tongue only make him a better administrator and professor.

MacFarquhar describes Verba as a “raconteur.”

“Sid is a repository of anecdotes,” Shepsle says. “He has a humorous story for every occasion—and I’ve heard them all at least four times.”

True to form, Verba has transcended political differences through his friendship with conservative Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield ’53.

The wave of commentary on Verba’s replacement of Mansfield as government department chair in 1977 illustrates the immense difference in style and ideology between the two.

Many students and colleagues were relieved to see Mansfield go because of his war on grade inflation. Verba opposed tampering with grading procedures.

Verba’s relationship with Mansfield dates back to their days as undergraduates when they shared a Leverett House entryway.

While they were not close in college, the pair—which Verba describes as a “knee-jerk liberal” and a “dyed-in-the-wool conservative”—now jokingly needle each other about their political differences.

Go Crimson

Verba says it was partly a loyalty to Harvard, formed during his undergraduate years, that brought him back to Cambridge. He returned after getting his Ph.D. at Princeton University and teaching there, at Stanford University and at the University of Chicago.

“He has this tremendous, almost inexplicable, loyalty to Harvard, going back to the fact that he was in the College,” Shepsle says. “His coming back to Harvard as a professor...was a homecoming for him.”

Verba grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and attended James Madison High School. Senior year he decided to attend Harvard over Princeton, a choice he in retrospect calls “the smartest thing I ever did.”

“If I had gone to Princeton as a naive, more-than-slightly awkward Jewish kid from Brooklyn, it would have been a disaster,” Verba says.

He knew so little about Harvard that he was surprised to discover you could get to the University by subway.

“I thought colleges like Harvard were out in the country surrounded by cows,” he says. “It took me six months to figure out that maybe I didn’t belong here, but by then I felt like I belonged here.”