A Tribute in Memory of a Beloved Professor of 42 years
A tribute in memory of Professor Richard H. Shultz Jr. by Dean Kelly Sims Gallagher, Professor and Associate Dean Abigail Linnington, and Professor and Director of the Maritime Studies Program Rockford Weitz
Our community has been mourning the loss of Richard (Dick) Shultz Jr., the beloved Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Security, since the news of his sudden passing on November 22, 2025. Professor Shultz was an educator, scholar, practitioner, mentor, and friend to The Fletcher School at Tufts University community and beyond. His loss is overwhelming. The outpouring of support is remarkable and a testament to not only his wisdom and leadership, but also to who he was as a person. We cherish his memory and the privilege of having him as a faculty member for 42 years.
Professor Shultz joined Fletcher as an associate professor in 1983 when he began teaching the Role of Force course. In 1989, he was appointed director of the International Security Studies Program and continued leading this program to present day. In 2000, he was promoted to professor. In 2017, he received the Lee E. Dirks Professorship in Diplomatic History, and in 2021 he was named the Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Security.
Indeed, the International Security Studies Program was the center of Professor Shultz’s professional life at Tufts. Shortly after joining the faculty, the Role of Force course, which he taught, consistently became among the largest enrolled courses at Fletcher. He was renowned for his engaging class lectures, for which he thoroughly prepared, often spending hours revising his lecture notes each year. He introduced other courses as well, such as the reinvented Comparative Civil-Military Relations course offered in fall 2025, and he planned to teach 21st Century Intelligence and National Security this spring.
In addition to his comprehensive coursework, Professor Shultz’s students have commented on his rare combination of intellectual fierceness and genuine kindness, his legendary support and generosity as a mentor, his ability to help students’ empathize with others’ points of view, the connection he created with each one of them—always making time for them, and the enormous influence he had shaping who they are today for the better.
Admired as a “giant” among Fletcher faculty, Professor Shultz was deeply committed to Fletcher as an institution and to building a strong security studies program within it. He believed in showing up in person for his colleagues and for his students. He was a pillar of Fletcher—always to be counted on to do what was needed at any given moment, and he influenced the faculty in profound ways. To use a maritime metaphor for the Fletcher faculty—the Fletcher carrier strike group—we just lost one of our Fletcher submarines (the most powerful escort ships protecting the Fletcher carrier).
Professor Shultz advised more than 100 doctoral students while at Fletcher and mentored generations of national security professionals. He stayed in close touch with hundreds of them, collecting biographies on every student that he referenced regularly. He could see the inner strengths of each student and fostered their potential before students and graduates realized it themselves. He made time to mentor faculty members as well, especially junior faculty at Fletcher; four of his former students have become faculty members at Fletcher and more than a dozen are faculty across international relations programs and military war colleges around the world.
Professor Shultz had a love for the Boston Red Sox, even though he was originally from Pennsylvania and for most of his time at Fletcher the team was an underdog. But in 2004 the Red Sox won the World Series after an 86-year championship drought. Professor Shultz was always an ally and supporter of “underdogs” and a believer in working hard, the potential of all, and giving everyone, including his students, a second chance.
In addition to being a gifted educator and mentor, Professor Shultz was an accomplished security studies scholar, researcher, and practitioner. He authored, co-authored, or co-edited 26 books and monographs, and numerous academic articles. Some recent works were a book “Transforming US Intelligence for Irregular War: Task Force 714 in Iraq” published in 2020 by Georgetown Press; and an article “Big Data at War: Special Operations Forces, Project Maven, and Twenty-First-Century Warfare” published in 2020 by the Modern War Institute at West Point.
Professor Shultz also served as director of research for the National Strategy Information Center from 2004-2012. In 2010 he co-led a major study focused on Adapting America’s Security Paradigm and Security Agenda to meet the challenges posed by 21st Century armed groups and the states that support them. He also completed a study on Armed Groups and Irregular Warfare: Adapting Professional Military Education, a curricular guide for military educational institutions, among other publications and reports.
Highly recognized, Professor Shultz held three chair positions during his career, including the Olin Distinguished Professorship of National Security Studies at the U.S. Military Academy, Secretary of the Navy Senior Research Fellow at the U.S. Naval War College, and Brigadier General H. L. Oppenheimer Chair of War-fighting Strategy, U.S. Marine Corps. More recently for 10 years he served as Senior Fellow at the U.S. Special Operations Command’s Joint Special Operations University.
Professor Shultz was a security consultant to various U.S. government departments and agencies concerned with national security affairs. He advised the highest levels of government in the United States, Japan, Greece, Armenia, Israel, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, and more. In the United States, he had substantial impact on the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), and many other branches of the U.S. government.
Over the decades Professor Shultz made a difference in many people’s lives, not only because of his knowledge and skill, but also because of his character—a person with the utmost integrity and lived values of generosity, kindness, respect, humility, and integrity. He is a role model for all of us.
Above all, Professor Shultz was devoted to his family—his wife, Casey, and son, Nick. Our deepest condolences go out to his family, friends, students, colleagues and all who had the opportunity to know him—he touched many.
Through Professor Shultz’s inspiring lifetime of service and support, his impact and legacy will be everlasting.
If you would like to contribute a memory of or tribute to Professor Shultz please fill out our form. Reflections from the community will be shared with his family and published as a remembrance news article on the Fletcher website.
In honor of Professor Shultz gifts can be made to the Richard H. Shultz Scholarship Fund, or in lieu of a donation the family suggests doing a random act of kindness while thinking of him.
A celebration of Professor Shultz’s life will be held on campus on Friday, January 30, 2026, to which the entire community is invited.