Lawrence University Recognizes 112 Years of Faculty Service with Honorary Degrees
APPLETON, WIS. -- Stoked by BBC broadcasts of stirring addresses by Winston Churchill during World War II and witnessing his own country -- India -- fight for its independence from England, Minoo Adenwalla's interest in political science took root as a teenager. It grew into a life-long passion.
Adenwalla, who spent 43 years as a member of the government department at Lawrence University, and economist Corry Azzi, a 32-year member of the faculty, will be awarded honorary Master of Arts, ad eundem, degrees Sunday June 16 during the college's 153rd commencement. Both will be granted professor emeritus status as retiring members of the Lawrence faculty. In addition, former professor of government Lawrence Longley also will be recognized posthumously with an honorary master's degree. Longley died in March.
While regimes and ruling bodies have changed dramatically worldwide over the past half century, Adenwalla has been a fixture in the Lawrence government since joining the faculty in 1959. A specialist in political philosophy, U.S. constitutional law, British and Indian politics, Adenwalla has taught under four Lawrence presidents during his career.
In 1989, Adenwalla was awarded an endowed professorship -- the Mary Mortimer Chair in Liberal Studies, which he still holds -- and two years later he was recognized with Lawrence's Excellence in Teaching Award.
A recipient of research grants from the Howard and Ford foundations, Adenwalla has returned to his native India several times, including three times to his birth city of Pune as the director of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest India Studies Program.
He has had dozen of reviews and articles published on a wide variety of political issues, including the essay, "We Shall Not Sleep: Terror in the U.S.A.," which appeared last fall in the quarterly journal Freedom First.
A native of Westchester, Ill., Azzi graduated summa cum laude from Lawrence in 1965 and joined the economics department of his alma mater in 1970 after earning his Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Originally hired as the department's macroeconomist, Azzi has taught 15 different courses during his tenure, expanding his interests into areas encompassing labor economics, public expenditures, applied welfare economics and industrial organization.
Lawrence honored Azzi's work in the classroom with its Excellence in Teaching Award in 1997. In the fall of 1999, he was one of six faculty members awarded an endowed professorship -- the Edwin N. and Ruth Z. West Professorship in Economics.
Azzi is the author of the book, "Equity and Efficiency Effects from Manpower Programs," and his scholarship has been published in the "Journal of Political Economy," "American Economic Review" and the "Quarterly Journal of Economics."
Early in his career, Azzi was heavily involved as a volunteer with Appleton's A Better Chance program, serving as a host family for numerous students over the years.
Longley, who lost a two-year battle with cancer earlier this year at age 62, was one of the nation's leading authorities on U.S. presidential elections and an outspoken critic of the electoral college. He joined Lawrence's government department in 1965 and was a prolific chronicler of politics and political institutions, writing or co-writing more than 100 books and studies.
A long-time member of the Democratic National Committee, Longley served as a U.S. presidential elector in both the 1988 and 1992 presidential elections. His expertise on the electoral college earned him a consultant's role to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee throughout the 1970s and 1990s, testifying as an expert witness on numerous occasions before U.S. Senate hearings on electoral college reform.
Longley was twice awarded distinguished Fulbright lectureships, serving as the John Marshall Chair in Political Science at Budapest University of Economics in 1994-95 and the Thomas Jefferson Chair in American social studies at the Netherlands' Nijmegen University in the fall of 2000.