Honorary Degrees of Retiring Faculty
Franklin Doeringer, professor of History and East Asian Studies, 2007
"Franklin Doeringer, you came to Lawrence in 1972 after completing a Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University. You quickly showed great skill as a teacher and a scholar, earning promotions to the rank of Associate Professor in 1982 and Professor in 1989. Also in 1989, you were recognized by being named the Nathan M. Pusey Professor of History and Asian Studies. You have made important contributions to Lawrence’s program in Freshman Studies and East Asian Studies Program, and have been the driving intellectual force behind the development of Lawrence’s programs in Chinese and Japanese.
As a teacher, you are regarded by both students and faculty as a thorough professional who plans courses carefully and thoughtfully, and gives classroom presentations that are extremely effective. Your students particularly admire your ability to help them understand non-Western cultures. One of the most important goals of a liberal education is enabling students to understand the unfamiliar. Your contribution to that goal through your teaching of East Asian cultures and your tireless advocacy for the study of Asia in Lawrence’s curriculum will long be remembered as having an exemplary effect on the university. Your superb teaching was recognized early in your career when you were chosen to receive the Outstanding Young Teacher Award in 1976. Later, your colleagues bestowed upon you the University’s highest teaching honor when they selected you for the Excellence in Teaching Award for the 1998-1999 academic year.
As a scholar, you have followed your interests in the intellectual history of China with both passion and care. Your published work is praised as combining the best traditions of fine scholarship with a sense of creativity that results in scholarship that is rich and deep. You are the author or co-author of two books and of articles published in such important journals as Philosophy East and West, and the Journal of Chinese Philosophy. Your article on international perspectives in the liberal arts, published in Liberal Education, is an important contribution to enriching our ideas about the goals of higher education.
Your faculty colleagues respect you for the fine intellectual leadership you have provided through service on many committees and groups that have helped guide Lawrence through a period of important development and have helped provide the foundation for the future. You have provided leadership as chair of the history department and the East Asian Studies department.
For your many contributions to the intellectual and cultural life of Lawrence and for your distinguished record as a teacher and scholar, I am pleased and honored to recognize you upon the occasion of your retirement from the faculty of Lawrence University."