On Being Flattered
I have been casually flattered many times, as everyone is in the course
of normal interchanges with friends and acquaintances. But two such occasions
have meant a great deal to me. The later of the two is briefly stated and has
had an important impact on my life. The earlier by many years was exceedingly
gratifying in that it referred so positively to a most important period of my
career.
To begin with the more recent occasion, four plus years ago I told
(daughter) Ellie that I was thinking of pulling up stakes in Pittsburgh and
moving permanently to Mexico City where she had settled more than two decades
before. As reported to me, this announcement led to a family dinner
conversation, with the central theme as to whether I should live with them in
their house or in a nearby apartment, easily rented. As I was subsequently told,
my two grandchildren, Max, the older, and Eva were firmly in favor of having me
live with them in the family’s home.
And that is what happened. I have a splendid room on the second floor,
near their rooms, so that we have numerous casual interactions besides those of
meal times and other family gatherings, in or out of the house. I have greatly
enjoyed their company and to have gotten to know them much better than I had in
briefer visits through the years. This surely would not have happened had it
not been for Max’s and Eva’s flattering vote of welcome.
As the saying has it, all good things come to an end. Max has now
concluded two years in college, at the Rhode Island School of Design in
Providence and is back home only when classes are not in session. Later this
summer, Eva will leave Mexico City for Chicago and the next stage of her
education at the school of the Art Institute. Great progress for them and
deserving of congratulations, but their parents will now have that Empty Nest experience
and for me, it will be the second such occasion. Thank goodness, there are vacations
from classes, so that now and then we will see Eva and Max at home.
* *
* * *
* *
Now to go back almost three decades, to May of 1987. I was at
the end of my thirteen years as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS)
at Northwestern University, chairing my last meeting of the College faculty.
There was no business of great importance, when Robert M. Coen, professor of
economics, sometime associate dean and chair of his department asked for the
floor to deliver what he called a Tribute to Dean Weingartner. What follows
explains well why I have often said that the deanship at Northwestern role was
much the best job I ever had. While Bob’s speech is fairly long, I did not edit
it; skim when you are bored. Here goes, Bob Coen speaking.
This
is the last meeting of the College faculty under the leadership of Rudy
Weingartner, and I want to express for the record an appreciation of his years
of tireless effort on behalf of the College. A Dean who serves as long and as
ambitiously as Rudy has leaves an enduring imprint on the functioning and the
spirit of the institution. He has reshaped and improved countless aspects of
the College’s daily activities, and his guidance in academic planning and
faculty development has always been inspired by the highest ideals.
Rudy’s tangible legacy to the College is indeed extraordinary. Many of
his accomplishments are already so well-entrenched that we take them for
granted and could not now imagine life without them. Unique curricular
programs, such as the Integrated Science Program and Mathematical Methods in
the Social Science, were established and flourished under his leadership. He
spearheaded a complete overhaul of our general education program, bringing a
new sense of order and purpose to our distribution requirements, establishing a
formal requirement in English composition and a program of instruction in basic
writing to support it, and instituting a program of freshman seminars. More
recently he has focused our attention on improving the senior-year experience
through capstone seminars and the like. These are just a few of the significant
curricular innovations that Rudy has either initiated or brought to fruition;
the full list is much much longer.
To effect these changes and to improve both the accessibility and the
quality of advising more generally, he has established the Office of Studies in
the Office of the Dean and took care to staff it with a rotating group of
knowledgeable members of the regular faculty. He also revamped our procedures
and institutions for curricular review and policy changes.
Replacing the Divisional Councils, those large groups that met
infrequently and hurriedly on such matters, we now have smaller, College-wide
committees capable of carrying on sustained, informed discussions of curricular
issues.
He initiated major administrative changes in two other areas. First, as
part of a broader effort to elevate the quality and integrity of the faculty
promotions process, he created the Committee on Promotion and Tenure, a
College-wide body specifically elected to advise him on these crucial matters.
This advisory role had formerly been assigned to the unwieldy, parochial
Divisional Councils. Second, he completely reorganized the Dean’s Office. The
role of the Associate Deans has changed from one based on functional areas to
one in which each Associate Dean is given wide responsibilities for a group of
CAS Departments The Dean is thereby able to devote more attention to
developmental efforts at expanding the financial base of the College. Rudy has
put in place development activities in an effective professional manner, and he
has brought into being the CAS Magazine and the CAS Visiting Committee, among
other things, to make our work and our needs better known to potential
supporters.
With regard to faculty development, Rudy’s enormous influence is
well-documented in the twelve-year report he made to the faculty last fall.
Large numbers of us were hired or promoted by him, and in other less
visible ways, he has nurtured so many of our careers. The character of many
departments will be shaped by his personnel decisions for years to come.
These are some of the most obvious and valuable elements of Rudy’s
tangible legacy. But equally important, I thin, are the intangible qualities he
brought to his office. These are perhaps best known to those of us who worked
closely with him in the Dean’s Office. It is rare to find an academic
administrator who is both a strong manager and an intellectual and spiritual
leader. Rudy is one of the rare ones.
In fall of the efforts I have referred to, and in many others as well,
Rudy has always tried to develop in us, the faculty, a strong sense of the
goals of the College as a whole and how we can further them. Division of our
lives into departments and even into specialties within departments can easily
cause us to loose sight of what brings us together as a faculty.
Moreover, our extramural professional activities often overshadow our
intramural activities; and well they should in many instances, for it is
through our scholarly activities
that we bring prominence to the College—a point that
Rudy appreciates as much as any of us do. But
there also has to be a glue that binds us, a sense of common purpose, a
recognition that the whole can indeed be greater than the sum of its parts.
Rudy has been unrelenting in trying to instill that spirit in us. He has been a
guardian of the best ideals of the liberal arts tradition in undergraduate
education, a steadfast supporter of academic freedom and integrity and an
indefatigable proponent of collegiality.
That Rudy’s hopes and dreams for the College—and ours—may not all have
been realized can be blamed in part on the institutional and budgetary
constraints within which he had to operate. But another check has been that
that we have not always lived up to his expectations of us, to the high ideals
that he would have us follow.
I am sure that I reflect the sentiments of my colleagues in expressing
gratitude to Rudy for this legacy, in wishing him every success in the
challenges he will face as Provost at the University of Pittsburgh, and in
wishing Rudy and Fannia much happiness in their new home.
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