At Commencement exercises for the Class of 2004, Jeffrey D. Riester, ’70, chair of the Lawrence University Board of Trustees, surprised Margot Moses Warch, wife of retiring President Richard Warch, with the presentation of a previously unannounced honorary degree, Master of Arts, ad eundem. Below is the citation accompanying that honor.
Margot Warch, as this academic year comes to a close, you will have served
Lawrence University for 25 years in the unofficial capacity of “President’s
Spouse” with great warmth and distinction. You have also served the larger
community as a distinguished faculty member at Fox Valley Technical College,
retiring this past year, and graced us as neighbor, friend, and colleague.
As Lawrence’s hostess, you supervised the remodeling and redecoration of
229 North Park Avenue, where you have opened doors to students, faculty, staff,
trustees, alumni, and friends of the university. You have tested recipes for
every occasion, searched for and found cookbooks in many libraries, joking that
food and drink have been your principal research activity. In these and more
serious (though perhaps not more important) pursuits, you have never stopped
learning.
After teaching high school English in New York and Connecticut, you taught reading
at Fox Valley Technical College for twenty-seven years, and have served as lead
instructor in reading in the Goal Oriented Adult Learning lab. One of the specialties
you brought to your position was your experience dealing with adults with learning
disabilities, which you shared with colleagues for the benefit of students in
need. You also played a key role in revamping the entire reading curriculum,
and were a central participant in the college’s student advising program,
winning the Outstanding Academic Advisor Award for the 1999-2000 academic year.
Always a reader, you talk easily about current events and recent fiction. The
gray van with the “L VIKES” license plates has for years arrived
sharply at 8:00 a.m. each Sunday at Jerry’s so that the Warch household
will be sure to have its Sunday New York Times (though you have not yet mastered
the Sunday crossword puzzle). For years, you hospitably received used books and
stored cartons of them in the basement for the annual AAUW book sale. While your
children were at the Edison School, you helped to start the Right To Read program,
and for many years have been a vital force in the development of the Fox Valley
Literacy Coalition, serving a term as its president.
A compassionate and caring neighbor, you are sought out for your good judgment,
warm smile, and listening ear. You have cared for and about many others in sickness
and distress. Teacher, spouse, parent, neighbor, and counselor, you have welcomed
many to your table, and it is therefore only fitting that at this commencement
Lawrence welcome you as the colleague you have always been in all but name.
By the authority vested in me, I now confer upon you the degree of Master of
Arts, ad eundum, and admit you to its rights, its privileges, and its obligations.
