Honorary Degrees of Retiring Faculty
Charles Breunig, David G. Ormsby Professor of History, 1986
"Let us imagine that a magic carpet has transported you, as you have transported so many students during the past three decades, to France. The year is 1789; the place is Paris; and you are a delegate to the National Assembly. Where in that body which gave us the political terms 'right,' 'center,' and 'left' shall we seat you? Your principled, persistent, and persuasive defense of the traditional values and aims of the liberal arts--in the classroom, on committees, in faculty meetings, and in your writing--entitles you to a place on the right. The quiet, adroit diplomacy that you have practiced in conflicts between young and old, reactionaries and radicals, administrators and colleagues makes the center an equally appropriate location for you. Or perhaps--considering your untiring advocacy, in the community as well as on the campus, of equal rights for the disadvantaged minorities and of the social and economic changes required to give substance to legal rectification of injustice--you really belong on the left.
As the impossibility of pigeonholing you suggests, you are indeed a man for all seasons and for many milieux. From Indianapolis to Cambridge, Paris to Grenoble, Middletown to Appleton (with intermediate stops in Boennigheim, London, and Randolph, New Hampshire), you have practiced to perfection the arts and crafts of historical writing, teaching, academic statesmanship, and true friendship. As you cross the green from Main Hall to the archives of Seeley G. Mudd, we salute you--with gratitude for all you have done with and for us, with confidence that the history of Lawrence on which you are working will constitute yet another major contribution to the University, and with the affectionate expectation that your warm smile and sage counsel will illuminate this landscape for many years to come.
By the authority vested in me, I now confer upon you the degree of Master of Arts, ad eundem, and admit you to its rights, its privileges, and its obligations."