E. Graham Waring, E.M. Beach-E.B. Garton Professor of Religion, 1987

"Graham Waring, you are one of the few who can retire early without abbreviating your career; for you started early--with a B.A. from Southern Methodist at age 19 and a B.D. and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago seven years later. From those early beginnings, your intellectual journey has taken you, and will no doubt continue to take you, back and forth between Athens and Jerusalem. Throughout your 36 years of teaching you have led your students from the complexities of the early Church councils, through your beloved deists, to the modern thought of Kierkegaard, Tillich, and Heschel. Throughout these years students have not only encountered the breadth and depth of your knowledge, but also the warmth and compassion of your person, your patient counsel, and your talent for teaching through story.

As you have studied, written, and taught, so too have you served: patiently, effectively, humanely. You directed the Boennigheim Program in the first years of Lawrence's venture into foreign studies, and you added your good counsel to the affairs of the University during a six-year tour of duty as Associate Dean.

Your colleagues inevitably associate you with words--spare in use, sometimes ironic, but always well-chosen. You have opened and closed many of our convocations with a well-spoken word. Now, however, it is our privilege to speak well of you, our 'benedictor.'

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."