Honorary Degrees of Retiring Faculty
Minoo Adenwalla, Professor of Government and Mary Mortimer Professor of Liberal Studies, 2002
"Minoo Adenwalla, your forty-three year career at Lawrence University as a teacher, a scholar, and a colleague stands as testimony to the importance of living a life of liberal learning.
When you first joined the Lawrence faculty in 1959, your native India had just recently joined the family of nations. Drawing on your experience in the colonial and early post-colonial periods and on your doctoral work at Northwestern University, you brought to Lawrence a deep knowledge of both Eastern and Western traditions in political philosophy. You introduced generations of Lawrentians to Great Thinkers of the past, including Plato, Locke and Gandhi. Your approach was always to present thinkers on their own terms and then to allow students the freedom to evaluate the ideas on their own. Once, in a Freshman Studies lecture, you did such a fine job of explaining the writings of Marx and Engels that rumors began circulating on the campus that you were in fact a closet Marxist--rumors that we know to have been slight exaggerations to say the least.
In your courses on constitutional law, you taught students the foundational cases of our legal system. In your role as pre-law advisor on campus, you helped many prepare for successful careers in business, government, and law. Always a challenging professor, your simple yet pointed inquiries--'Mr. Smith, would you please outline the facts of the case?'--ensured that your students came to class prepared. Although not all students fully appreciated the time and care you took grading their papers and exams while they were taking your courses, many alumni grew to recognize and applaud your high standards when later they found themselves to be well prepared for the rigors of law school and of their jobs. And, just to set the record straight this one last time, it is not true that you cut a student's paper into the shape of an "F." It was actually a rather elaborate D-.
In your wider activities on campus, you also contributed to the life of the college by serving on the Tenure Committee, chairing the Government Department, and acting as Director of the ACM-India program. Less well-known but perhaps even more important have been your efforts to test arguments and challenge colleagues, either in individual conversations or on the floor of faculty meetings. You've never been afraid to take controversial positions about the topics of the day, including the war in Vietnam, sexual harassment laws, and, more locally, grade inflation and curriculum reform. Colleagues have found in you a true advocate for the democratic process, for civil liberties, and for racial justice.
Today, we are pleased formally to welcome you to a new place within the Lawrence family by conferring upon you an honorary degree. Given your fondness for dining opportunities, let me point out that this honor brings with it not only the dinner last night, but also a luncheon after commencement this afternoon. More important, it brings with it the deep respect and warm friendship of your students and colleagues here at Lawrence.
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."