October 28, 2004

Interim Dean Joel Martin's Remarks from the Ceremony

I knew John for a shorter period of time than many who have spoken or written about him, so I can speak with some confidence about his incredible capacity to influence even those who knew him only briefly. The number of people in this category must be vast. I feel very privileged to be among them, and particularly to have had the chance to work closely with John for several months making decisions vital to the well-being of the College.

I had never met John until last April, when I entered the dean’s office. He didn’t know me and I didn’t know him. At our first meeting, he let me know right away his expectations and his limits. He said, “ Now if I sense that you aren’t shooting straight, then I’ll leave.” I knew then that we were going to be fine. And we were. He never left.

I enjoyed every minute of working with him and came to respect him enormously. We met often, listened to various faculty issues, some quite vexed and contentious, and we debated how to resolve them. This was a true joy, because John always had the best interests of the faculty and students at heart. He always wanted to know how an action or decision would benefit their research and the life of the College.

He was direct, but not harsh. He had high standards and wanted faculty to hold our students to them. He didn’t think the way to inspire learning was to greet students with low expectations, but said repeatedly that we should challenge them and mentor them, and with his students he was extraordinarily generous with his time and intellect.

When it came to relating to faculty, he had x-ray vision. He could smell nonsense a mile away, and if anyone was unwise enough to bring anything resembling it into the office and try to defend it, he would remind them with one or two simple statements or questions of the work we were supposed to be doing, the research we were supposed to be promoting. John focused on the students, particularly the underrepresented students, whom he said we should seek out and enable to realize all of their intellectual potential in the lab, in the library, in creative activity. Nothing seemed to make him happier, he said, than to take, in his words, a “thug” from the back of the classroom and turn that person into a first-class researcher or at least a person who realized her intellectual possibilities.

Every day in many ways and always with supreme stability, John reminded all of us why we should care so much about the unique transformative work of the university. So it’s not surprising that since his passing, I’ve heard many try to find a metaphor to express his fidelity to this great purpose, his constancy, his undaunted passion for research. I’ve heard some say he was a rock, others that he was like a compass pointing the way, others that he was the atomic clock by which all other watches should be set. He was all of these things, a friend, a colleague, and more. I think he was a very great man and that we were all lucky to know him.