Mickey Craig, professor of politics at Hillsdale College for almost 40 years, died Feb. 10 at age 70 in the city of Hillsdale.
“His loss will be felt keenly here, but his warmth, his wit, and the steady example of his good life will remain in the memories of the students he formed and the colleagues who knew him,” Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn said in a statement. “He was above all a teacher, and he piled up his treasure in the hearts of his students and his colleagues.”
Craig loved classical political philosophy and always returned to Plato’s Socrates, Xenophon’s Cyrus, and the Federalist Papers, according to his daughter, Assistant Professor of Classics Patricia Aeschliman. He cared deeply about both his family and his students, she said.
“He gave his time and devoted his life, in a real way, to his students, some of whom he inspired to become professors or politicians, and others whom he helped in their various careers or simply encouraged as they started families of their own,” Aeschliman said.
Craig was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas and got his bachelor’s degree at Arkansas State University. He received his master’s degree and doctorate from Claremont Graduate School before coming to Hillsdale College in 1986, according to the obituary published by Eagle Funeral Homes. He married his wife, Joanne, in 1987, and they had six children.
“Dad considered himself the luckiest man in the world to have worked at Hillsdale College for nearly 40 years,” Aeschliman said. “He loved teaching, loved the college, loved his students and colleagues.”
Craig is survived by his wife, Joanne; his three sons, Joe Craig ’14, Michael Craig ’22, and Matthew Craig; his three daughters, Aeschliman, Monica Fiedorek, and Christina McNamara; and seven grandchildren.
Craig had planned to retire later this year, according to Aeschliman.
“Mickey was, in a real sense, the founding chair of an independent department of politics here, something that mattered greatly to him,” Arnn said. “He helped to create the major and left a strong imprint on its curriculum.”
While at Hillsdale, Craig served as dean of social sciences, led the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program, advised the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, became the founding chair of the politics department, and won Professor of the Year in 1995.
Aeschliman said some of her favorite childhood memories of Craig were the history-themed vacations the family took, including to the birthplace of Mark Twain in Missouri and sites associated with Laura Ingalls Wilder. The family would also spend hours playing card and board games.
“Later in the evening, some Craigs could get silly and slaphappy,” Aeschliman said. “My sister Chrissy and my dad were most likely to start laughing uncontrollably. Dad would sometimes get up and walk out of the room to regain his composure, then walk back in with a straight face only to lose it again upon making eye contact with any of his children.”
Mark Kalthoff, professor of history, said he knew Craig for almost 40 years, and the two worked together on a variety of college projects. At the time, history and politics were one department.
“The department kept growing, and we got to the point where when it came time to put together the schedule for who’s teaching what courses, I would do the history and he would do the politics,” Kalthoff said. “So we kind of jointly helped run the department together for a lot of years.”
When the college launched its Hoogland Center for Teaching Excellence in 2001 — an initiative to provide quality, classical content for teachers — Kalthoff and Craig helped lead one of its pilot programs on the Declaration of Independence.
“We were both interested in the history of the American founding,” Kalthoff said. “We both lectured on that a lot and talked about it a lot.”
Kalthoff’s children grew up with Craig’s children, and the two often spent years attending the kids’ sporting events together.
“I’ve lost track of how many times I sat in the stands with him, watching soccer or basketball games or going to track meets, watching our sons play together,” Kalthoff said.
Craig’s students loved him, Kalthoff said.
“He was a beloved teacher, and he was a mentor to many students who would go on either in law or politics,” he said. “And I think the fact that the church where the funeral was was standing room only was a testimony to how many of his former students were expressing their sympathy for his family.”
One former student, Joseph Cella ’91 — an ambassador to Fiji and other Pacific islands during the first Trump administration — attended the funeral and read the Prayers of the Faithful during the Mass. He said Craig helped shape his political career and the careers of other graduates.
“His formation of us, really in a fatherly mentor way, had an indelible impact on all of us and our lives’ callings,” Cella said. “He was an exemplar of a professor who loved his students, who cared about them as the whole person, heart, mind, and soul, and cared for their dignity.”
Cella said there was a group of students from the class of ’91, including himself, that Craig called “his boys.”
“We would make contact with him throughout the years, whether it was email or text messages or dinners, and update one another on life’s developments and babies being born and weddings or career updates, and he was always there for us,” Cella said. “He had a very, very special fatherliness about him that I’m forever grateful for.”
Craig attended Cella’s farewell party before Cella went overseas as an ambassador, Cella said.
“He was very special, and I’ll treasure him forever — a great witness as a father and as a husband and certainly as an academic,” Cella said. “He’s an exemplar for all to follow.”
In addition to his care for his family and students, Craig loved baseball, especially the St. Louis Cardinals, and racquetball, according to Dean of Men Aaron Petersen, who said he remembered challenging Craig — who was about 15 years Petersen’s senior — to a game of racquetball.
“He and another professor were playing, and I barged in with another staff member and started talking trash, challenging them to a game,” Petersen said.
The group started playing, and the game quickly turned in Craig’s favor.
“We weren’t making the shots, and they were just hitting everything. Mickey was playing out of his mind,” Petersen said. “They stumped us, and he walked out looking at me, and he said, ‘Yeah, anytime you want to play, Petersen.’ That was humbling.”
Petersen then ran into Craig’s wife at Sunday Mass a few days later.
“She had a big, happy smile on her face and she said, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t talk so much trash when you play racquetball,’” Petersen said. “She left me speechless, which doesn’t happen often. Later, when I saw her and Mickey again, I said, ‘Did you really tell your wife to talk trash to me at church?’ And he just grinned and shrugged his shoulders.”
Joseph Postell, associate professor of politics, met Craig during Postell’s interview for a job at the college.
“Unlike a lot of job interviews, he was very welcoming, and he really just wanted to make me think that Hillsdale was the right place for me,” Postell said. “He told me what he told everybody, which is, ‘You’re going to love it here.’ Every single time we hired a new faculty member, or we interviewed somebody, he would say, ‘You’re going to love it here.’”
Craig loved teaching at Hillsdale, and he was especially excited when the college hired his daughter, Aeschliman.
“I think that made him both extremely proud and extremely happy, and it was fun to see his reaction to that,” Postell said. “His daughter got a good job, and it was at this college, and in some ways she was his student as well, because he gave her a lot of advice and mentorship. It was like all of the things he loved happening at the same time. I know that made him profoundly happy, and it was a lot of fun to see him that happy.”
Professor of History Kenneth Calvert said Craig’s children are a testament to the kind of man he was.
“His six children are all great people, and all just absolutely in love with their father,” Calvert said. “You could see that in their relationships. Were there hard times, of course, but they loved and respected their dad, and that speaks a lot of a man and of Mickey Craig, that his children would see him that way.”
Aeschliman said her father was very supportive through her time in graduate school.
“He was incredibly proud to have me join him at Hillsdale as a colleague,” Aeschliman said. “My dad prioritized above all taking care of his family; we’ve seen first-hand his love for my mom, his care and planning for my brother’s health and happiness, and his hard work to keep himself healthy so that he could continue providing for the family. He was a great man and a most loving father.”
