Saturday, February 10, 2018
Charter Day
Yesterday was Charter Day at my alma mater, William and Mary, celebrating the 325th anniversary of the founding of the college. Among other things, they have a big formal ceremony in the basketball stadium. CraigA and his wife Lori came down from Richmond, so I got to see them (which is always worth a trip on its own).
Among the speakers (which included former Sec. of Defense Robert Gates, the Governor of Virginia and others) I had the best job: I got to introduce my mentor and teacher Prof. Joanne Braxton, who was given the school's top honor, the Thomas Jefferson Award. Her speech was amazing, and it got not only a standing ovation, but something more remarkable: that moment of stunned silence right before it.
Here is what I said in my introduction:
"The Thomas Jefferson Award is the College's most prestigious honor, bestowed upon a faculty member who has demonstrated a
deep devotion and outstanding service to the college. This year we honor my teacher and mentor, Professor Joanne Braxton. Good
teachers touch students’ lives. Great teachers transform them. Professor
Braxton has been the latter, a beloved force of nature.
When class began, I found out what that meant. Professor Braxton wasn’t a poet just because she had published poetry; she was a poet because her words were well-considered, strong, worthy of our time. A question would be asked, and she would pause, nodding a little. We waited anxiously, and then the answer would come out in a way I had never heard before. Her responses had an architecture to them; they weren’t said so much as constructed. We listened, really listened, motionless. I began to think differently about race and history, and also about the power of language. I resolved to have some poetry in me no matter what I did; I wanted a bit of that soaring architecture in what I said and wrote. I still do.
To you students: The heart of teaching is love. I learned that from this teacher.
Thank you, congratulations, and welcome, Professor Joanne Braxton."
And then she slayed them.
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I still have fond memories of teachers who strove to be the best influence on students that they could be, not only in knowledge, but in outlook, morals and especially investing of oneself for the betterment of society. A high school chemistry teacher who taught us to have fun while being safe, and inspired career choices in science. An English teacher, who taught us to write quickly, accurately, and avoid common pitfalls, grading hundreds of essays every school day. A couple of college professors, not in classes I took, but with whom I worked when I managed the library in the math and science residential college that started in my junior year at the university, who put many volumes of their personal libraries into my care and who came to see who had checked them out or signed onto the use list so that they could encourage students, and also used me as a sounding board for approaches and exercises for the fields they taught. And the four professors who sat on my dissertation committee and demanded more because they knew I could do it.
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