Honorary Degrees of Retiring Faculty
Allen C. West, Professor of Chemistry, 1993
"Allen West, in your twenty-seven years of service to Lawrence, you have exemplified the virtues and rewards of effective teaching, both in the classroom and laboratory, and have been a wise and caring counselor to generations of Lawrence undergraduates. You have taken seriously the pedagogical challenges of first-rate science education and have met them. Your lectures and laboratories have led students to observe chemistry not only in the confines of Youngchild but in the world beyond and to comprehend its application in their everyday lives. Before it became a vogue, you moved toward a lecture-lean, experience-rich approach to the subject. Your final demonstration in General Chemistry became something of a campus event, drawing crowds to witness wonderful explosions and myriad colors--and to listen to your very own musical rendition of the periodic table of elements. And no testimony to your years at Lawrence would be complete without mention of your magnificent Freshman Studies lectures on Kuhn, in which the phlogiston theory became vital and viable.
Above all, you have been the exemplar of the liberally educated person, as your poetry, musical talents and tastes, and full participation in the life of the college attest. You have embodied as well the principle of a sound mind and a sound body, as an accomplished and trophied tennis player. You have been generous to our students, welcoming them to your home and thereby connecting them more fully and confidently to you and to their college. Finally, through your opening and closing words at countless matriculation and commencement convocations, you have given a style, substance, and grace to our common life. A quotation on your door may serve as our remembrance of you:
We remember what we understand;
We understand only what we pay attention to;
We pay attention to what we want.
You have helped us to want, and to pay attention, and to understand.
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."