No one, not even your chemistry colleagues, has taken more pleasure in blowing stuff up, but you will be remembered for what you put together. That includes our program in biochemistry and molecular biology; team-taught, interdisciplinary courses on AIDS, globalism, and even What is Life?; and the renovation of the Thompson Science Buildings and addition of the Morley Science Labs that, at the time, was the largest capital project in the college’s history. Come summer you co-taught a science camp for local elementary school students and teachers and mentored dozens of students in your laboratory’s study of DNA repair. You served as director of the Bronfman Science Center and chair of the Science Committee for more consecutive years than one would think humanly possible. Have you never heard of the word “sabbatical”? Your other legacy, of course, is musical, as you frequently serenaded your class with voice and guitar (often after quizzes—particularly hard ones), adding science-y lyrics to popular tunes, and soliciting students’ favorite songs (as long as they were from the sixties), all of which made for chemistry of a different kind.
I hereby declare you Philip and Dorothy Schein Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, entitled to all the rights, honors, and privileges appertaining thereto.
June 3, 2018