IN THE BASEMENT and hidden behind the front wall of the College’s largest lecture hall, Hays Hall 104C is the office no one wanted. But it’s just about perfect forProfessor Emeritus of Chemistry John Zimmerman H’67.
There’s plenty of room for homemade cubbyholes, boxes containing the archivesof the Midwestern Association of Chemistry Teachers in Liberal Arts Colleges (MACTLAC), the video and camera equipment he has used to document more than three decades
of Wabash history, and the computer station for processing videos of everything from pipetting to Glee Club world tours.
And its two-story tall walls barely contain his collection of photographs—his own award-winning images, some treasured gifts, and portraits of places and people that have shaped and enriched his life.
“My offices have always been filled with personal images and artifacts from my past,” says the professor most call Dr. Z. “Every image and every artifact has a story to remember.”
Here’s one about the painting he’s posing next to:
I MET KAIZAAD KOTWAL ’91 as a freshman attending the annual Awards Banquet. Two years later he asked me to document You Can’t Take It With You, a play he was directing for the local theater group. He was a taskmaster. I recorded and photographed the entire play at least five times; it was my introduction to the theater. I have only missed documenting a handful of Wabash plays in the intervening 20 years.
At the end of his senior year, Kaizaad asked me to photograph his paintings. It was a pickup load of work! When I finished I presented a verbal bill for film to Kaizaad. “Sorry, Dr. Z, I don’t have any money,” he said.
I said, “Then you just sold a painting!”