2013 Honorary Degree Luncheon
'We gather to celebrate the recipients of one of the College's highest honors,' President Pat White told more the 100 guests gathered in the Frank H. Sparks Center for the 2013 Honorary Degree Luncheon. Professor Emeritus Raymond Williams offered the invocation: 'Thank you for these honorary degree recipients and their long obedience in the direction of excellence and service to the common good that we celebrate today. Thank you for the good earth that sustains us, good friends and colleagues who share these tables and help make life worth living.'
President White talks with honorary degree recipient Geoff Coates ’89, Tisch University Professor of Chemistry at Cornell and scientific co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Novomer Inc., a sustainable chemistry company specializing in high performance, environmentally responsible polymers.
With a former Wabash chemistry major (who's been named one of the top 100 chemists in the world by Thomson Reuters) receiving an honorary degree, Sunday was a proud day for the chemistry department. Here Associate Professor of Chemistry Lon Porter talks with Wendy Feller, wife of Professor of Chemistry Scott Feller.
Executive Administrative Assistant to the President Karen Burger, who organizes and coordinates the luncheon, looks over name tags to see who has arrived for the event.
President White toasts the honorary degree recipients: 'Gentlemen, Wabash is proud to honor you today. You have distinguished yourself in the life of the mind, heart, and spirit we foster so eagerly at Wabash College. You have taken your commitment and your thinking into a complex world where men and women take action for the common good. 'For the courage and indefatigable dedication to the work of leadership; for your commitment to the liberal arts and sciences; for your achievements; and for your lives well-lived as models for our students, we salute you with gratitude and joy.'
Geoff Coates ’89
Bon Apetit Chefs work to get food ready, while staff members worked tirelessly to serve a three-course meal to more than 100 guests in little more than an hour.
Professor of Chemistry Richard Dallinger talks with Geoff Coates' father.
President White welcomes Coates to the podium.
Coates began his remarks noting that Sunday was Mother's Day. He paid tribute to mothers, and especially his own, who, he noted, with two sons who are Wabash alums, had now spent three Mother's Days at Wabash Commencements.
'Wabash is very very special, and I think all of us here know that, and I’d like to take a moment to talk about why Wabash is so special to me, and the most special thing about the College is the staff and faculty,' Coates said, then told stories about those who shaped his time at Wabash, including math professors David Wilson and the late Bob Cooley and chemistry professors Bob and Julie Olsen, John Zimmerman, Rich Dallinger and his research advisor Roy Miller. 'It’s a real honor to receive this degree,' Coates said, adding that this was his first return to campus in 16 years: 'Walking around campus last night I could see it’s not just doing well, but it’s really thriving.'
President White welcomes to the podium honorary degree recipient Craig Dyksta, former senior vice president for religion at Lilly Endowment and currently research professor of practical theology and senior fellow at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity School. Dykstra worked with Wabash Professor Raymond Williams in the founding of both the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion and the Wabash Pastoral Leadership Program.
'I have long considered my relationship with Wabash to be quite personal in character,' Dykstra said. 'To know Wabash College is to know it’s marvelous people and it has been a great privilege for me to work with Wabash College faculty and administrators in planning, funding, implementing the Centers here.'
Dykstra talked about Professor Bill Placher and his friendship with Professor Williams, a ‘friendship that has deepened year by year for almost a quarter of a century. ‘I have come to love Wabash College. That’s not hard to do, as you know very well. Thus it pleases me more than I can say that later this afternoon you will make me one of your own.’
President White welcomes Dean Reynolds ’70, four-time Emmy-winning journalist, to the podium.
'One of the great things about this school is that I can share a platform with people like Geoff and Craig,' Reynolds said. 'I think the mark of a great college is when an old graduate still gets emotional just talking about the place.'
'To put it into a single phrase: Wabash opened my eyes. There’s something about this place and the people who taught us that stays with me to this day. When I am working on a story I am constantly drawing on the knowledge I gained here, right here. When I write I have a body of knowledge, a reservoir that was filled right here, the seeds were sown here, and they continue to bloom like perennials all these years later. I would not be as successful, indeed I would not be as happy without the foundation that this school gave me.'
Chair of the Board of Trustees Stephen Bowen ’68 stepped to the podium to announce that President White, who leaves Wabash for Milliken University in July, was being awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters.
First Lady Chris White reacts to Bowen's announcement.
'I am speechless,' President White said. 'This is too magical to believe. I think everyone here knows my love of the College—a great college, where magical and wonderful things happen every day. 'This is an enormous honor, and I’m grateful to be with this class of honorary degree recipients, and for the four of us to have the honor to graduate with these 190 enormously talented, wonderful, and extraordinary Wabash men this afternoon.'
President White thanks Steve Bowen.
President White's son, Paddy, congratulates his dad on the honorary degree.