2008 Woodie Awards
Tributes to Dean Norman Adler
Issue date: 5/16/05 Section: Features
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From Dr. Louis H. Feldman
In looking back on my fifty years of teaching at Yeshiva College, I have seen many significant changes as it tripled in size since 1955, when 450 students were enrolled. I have taught under five deans, but when I think of the single most significant innovation during those five decades, I have no hesitation in singling out the introduction of the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Honors Program and the person who deserves by far the most credit for this innovation: Dean Norman Adler.
I believe that I am in a position to make this statement because I chaired the Faculty Honors Committee that designed the Honors Program throughout the long period of discussion and debate until the faculty adopted it. It was by no means a foregone conclusion that the faculty would eventually agree. When the Roman writer of comedy, Terence, coined the phrase "Quot homines, tot sententiae," "So many people, so many opinions," he must have been prophetically thinking of college faculties. We opened our committee meetings to all interested faculty members, and during the process Dean Adler wisely invited small groups of Faculty members to informal meetings where he presented the case.
The chief opposition, as I recall, came from those who said that an Honors Program would lead to elitism in the student body and, in effect, would lead to a split among the students reminiscent of what we have seen happen so often when a shul grows and then splits because the members develop divergent ideologies. In the end we arrived at the principle of permeability. Students specifically admitted to the Honors Program would have to meet stringent criteria for excellence, but all except four honors courses would remain open to all students who could satisfy the individual instructor that they could master the coursework.
One major question was how many credits to require of students intending to complete the Honors Program and receive a special diploma with a dual credential. We settled, with support from Dean Adler, on 108 credits in residence, requiring at least one extra term from our best educated students.
Finally, we were ready to ask the faculty as a whole to adopt the Honors Program. Again it was Dean Adler who played the key role in explaining the program to the remaining dubious Faculty members one by one, and enlisting their support. When the Faculty met as a whole to discuss the adoption of the program, a miraculous suspension of the laws of nature occurred. The historic vote was unanimous with one abstention.
Now we had a program on paper; but the whole point of the program was to induce faculty to develop new courses that would challenge and appeal to our students. Here a slight practical obstacle became apparent: the low morale of the faculty. It is a gross understatement to say that we were overworked and underpaid. However, Dean Adler took the lead in encouraging faculty members to develop new and exciting courses in their specialties to enhance their own enjoyment of their fields as well as the educations of motivated students. I myself developed a new course dealing with Philo and Josephus as interpreters of the Bible.
When Dean Adler came to us, one of his primary goals was to develop a program that would produce a Rhodes Scholar. Rhodes Scholarships are the most prestigious and most competitive scholarships for graduate study that are open to students throughout this country. During Dean Adler's tenure as dean we produced, as a product of the Honors Program, the first Rhodes Scholar in the history of Yeshiva College. as well as winners of other prestigious fellowships.
Under our dedicated and tireless director, Professor Will Lee, the Honors Program continues to flourish, encouraging Faculty members to produce innovative courses and attracting the most gifted and most devoted students in ever greater numbers. Right now I am teaching an honors course in Roman Civilization, to every session of which I have looked forward with unmitigated enthusiasm.
The Honors Program is only one example of what Dean Adler has done for Yeshiva College. It was his idea, in line with Plato's dictum that "the life that is uncriticized is not worth living," to raise the intellectual level of our students at the very beginning of their stay with us through the book project. Toward this end he conceived the idea of getting a representative group of the Faculty to decide each year to adopt an important and challenging book, of sending a copy to every new student, of having a program featuring a discussion of this book during the week of freshman orientation, of having this book serve as the basis of discussion in all classes of Freshman English Composition, and of having speakers throughout the year discussing various aspects of the book. Many Honors Program students serve as discussion facilitators at each fall's orientation dinner.
I want to close on a personal note. As is well known, through the half century that I have been at Yeshiva College, I have had very few students in Greek and Latin, though I am proud of the fact that some of my students are full professors at such institutions as Harvard, the City University, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew University, Bar Ilan University, and Ben-Gurion University. Many other universities, looking upon themselves as a business, would have long since eliminated a department that attracts so few students, especially when Yeshiva was not doing well financially. To its great credit, Yeshiva has always recognized the crucial importance of the classics as the basis of Western civilization and, in terms of our motto, as a key component in Torah u-Madda. Dean Adler not only recognized this centrality but encouraged me with great enthusiasm at every turn. He has contributed bountifully in manifold ways toward strengthening Yeshiva College as the intellectual fortress of Orthodoxy in America.
Professor Louis H. Feldman, a world renowned expert on the first century Jewish historian Josephus, is the Abraham Wouk Family Professor of Classics and Literature at Yeshiva University.
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From Ruth Bevan
Ten years ago Yeshiva College assumed a spirit of restlessness with the arrival of its new dean, Norman Adler. Of impressive academic credentials as an academic biological psychologist and as an administrator at prestigious schools like the University of Pennsylvania, Dean Adler added luster to Yeshiva College. Hopefully, he would wake up a sleepy institution and push it into the modern era, however that might be defined.
Reinvigoration certainly became the order of the day! Significant accomplishments that have transformed the College can be attributed to Dean Adler - the annual Book Project, the annual Arts Festival (held in conjunction with Stern College) and the Honors Program. Much cajoling, midnight oil and old-fashioned "crisis instigation strategy" produced results. Faculty grumbled about being overburdened. And grumbled some more. Yet faculty became swept up into a governance capacity that had never existed before - cluster chairs, Book Project administrator, Honors program administrator, Writing Center administrator, committee chairs.
The Dean rolled up his sleeves, too. He has been seen carrying pizzas for a faculty lunch. Getting the lighting to work for an event. Hailing cabs in the street for College guests. Everyone knows Dean Adler as a ball of energy, punching codes into his palm pilot or fiddling with his cell phone which plays strains of Mozart's Magic Flute to signal a call, flitting here and there like a butterfly on a summer's day. To keep his attention you must learn to get your point across in maximum three minutes. Maybe that is too long! (Frustrated at first, I actually came to find this good training for concise communication.) He noshes on pretzel rods stored in plastic cylinders strategically placed around his office complex, of which everyone is invited to partake. A favorite toy multicolored iguana from Guatemala appears to crawl across his desktop. On top of the credenza in the same office are family photos, one of himself with his infant grandchild at the piano. "My wife tells me I have to go back to piano lessons if I am to keep the piano." The photo recalls to memory his remark. Towering above the credenza, in a gilded frame, hangs an oil painting of a majestic but fierce eagle sitting atop mountains. When names were given to Jews in Germany, the Adler family inherited the eagle as its namesake. The eagle's fixed gaze unsettles.
On a typical day in the Dean's complex of offices the drama of life is played out. Secretaries, shielded behind counters, work impossible solutions, function as therapists and direct traffic. One knits a baby blanket on her lunch hour as a gift for an expectant faculty member. From the Assistant Dean's office often comes robust laughter, maybe strains of numa, numa. Above the fracas sounds the Dean's voice. He's telling a joke. Faculty gravitate toward the social hub. Students, smiling at the human-ness of it all, hang around.
At day's end, which might be late evening, the Dean chats with faculty about his academic vision for Yeshiva College. He finishes his latest ikebana lily arrangement and sets it on the secretary's station. His face intent, he outlines in the air, with fingers designed to play the piano, the points that he otherwise would list on the chalkboard. He
asks his faculty colleagues what they think. They get immersed in the project, forgetting it is time to go home.
A lover of the arts, I think Dean Adler would agree with John Stuart Mill's understanding of Art:
"No other human productions come so near to perfection as works of pure Art. In all other things, we are, and may reasonably be, satisfied if the degree of excellence is as great as the object immediately in view seems to us to be work; but in Art, the perfection is itself the object. If I were to define Art, I should be inclined to call it, the endeavor after perfection in execution. If we meet with even a piece of mechanical work which bears the marks of being done in this spirit - which is done as if the workman loved it, and tried to make it as good as possible, though something less good would have answered the purpose for which it was ostensibly made - we say that he has worked like an artist. Art, when really cultivated, and not merely practiced empirically, maintains, what it first gave the conception of an ideal Beauty, to be eternally aimed at, though surpassing what can be actually attained, and by this idea it trains us never to be completely satisfied with imperfection in what we ourselves do and are: to idealize, as much as possible, every work we do, and most of all, our own character and lives."1
Approaching his deanship with the spirit of the artist, with a love for the College and a desire to make it "as good as possible," Dean Adler left his indelible mark. Over the last ten years Yeshiva College has grown immeasurably in developing the art of learning. It has raised its expectations and, consequently, its standards. It stands as an institution of excellence This will remain as Dean Adler's legacy.
Striving toward excellence involves risk-taking. Mediocrity shelters itself in a safe harbor. It demands less effort, less money, less talent, less vision. It grinds its wheels methodically, creating the illusion of competence. Striving toward excellence can bring mistakes, even moments of turmoil. The temptation to settle for the safe can be powerful. Will we all be brave enough to continue pushing Yeshiva College forward?
Dean Adler will now assume other duties and occupy other office space as University Professor and as the University's ambassador-at-large for special projects.
The eagle in the gilded frame has already found a new home. Dean Adler is eminently qualified for his new function as "visionary" for the University; he breathed intellectual life into Yeshiva College. Indeed his parting project is most appropriate - initiating a curriculum review of Yeshiva College. Upon his arrival ten years ago, Dean Adler required all departments to undergo an outside academic review designed to upgrade programs, to assess needs and to chart future development. The reviews began what never left Yeshiva College - a community discussion about learning, about teaching, about academic purpose and objectives. The discussion is now being intensified with the introduction of the curriculum review.
The faculty is concerned about the future of Yeshiva College. It, too, has worked assiduously with the Dean these last ten years to create academic programs of enhanced excellence and to improve the life of faculty and students alike. It waits to be assured that this work has not been in vain and that it will participate in making those decisions that will shape its future. The anxiety of faculty is testimony in itself to the accomplishments Dean Adler leaves as his legacy.
Dean Adler - Norm: We shall miss you in our immediate midst but are consoled by knowing that you are never far away. Our very best wishes go with you and our gratitude for sharing with us your love of life.
1. John Stuart Mill. "The Value of Ancient Philosophy." The Inaugural Address to the University of St. Andrews, in Amelie Oksenberg Rorty. The Many Faces of Philosophy. Oxford UP. 2003. pp. 332-3.
Dr. Ruth A. Bevan is the David W. Petegorsky Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva College, chairperson of the Social Sciences cluster, and director of the R. Arthur Schneier Center for International Affairs at Yeshiva University.
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From David Johnson:
When the last laurel leaves were found in Hellas, when last the oracles were spoken at Delphi, you might still have seen there, in Greek twilight, the iron chair of Pindar. Pausanias tells us that whenever the poet came to Delphi he would sit in his chair of iron and sing his songs to Apollo, to the god of light and lord of the silver bow.
Now, the purpose of deans is to make iron chairs for poets. In my travels in academia I have found only one dean, only one maker, who understood this, and did this, and he shall be sorely missed by the wise of Yeshiva College.
So let us work while there is light. For the night cometh, when no man can work.
David Johnson is associate professor of Philosophy at Yeshiva College.
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From Joyce Jesinowski:
I just wanted to put on the record my complete and utter pleasure in serving as Norman's Assistant Dean. He found in Yeshiva College the seeds of greatness and he nurtured those seeds faithfully and joyfully in the time he was Dean. The Honors College, the Arts Festival, the Book Project, closer and more "pastoral" advising, the professionalization of the office, increased collegiality and faculty governance--all of these are his signal contributions to Yeshiva College. He fostered the faculty, increasing the number of teaching positions, but also encouraging the emergence of leadership in the sterling faculty members who are so active in shaping the college today. He loved you students. He always saw your possibility of "sparkling" as he so often put it. He graciously allowed me to participate fully in the administration of all aspects of the College--particularly giving me the pleasure of the Arts Festival and withdrawing from an activity that he initiated so that i could be the advisor.
Yeshiva owes an unmeasurable debt to Norman Adler. I hope that you (at least figuratively) raise him up on your shoulders and shower him with the praise he deserves. The College will not easily replace him.
Dr. Joyce Jesionowski is a former assistant dean of Yeshiva College and is currently teaching at SUNY-Binghamton.
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From William Stenhouse:
It will not come as a surprise to readers of this paper that Norman Adler is not like the other university administrators that I've come across, in my admittedly limited experience. They tend to be either plump, satisfied and polished executives or lean, often mustachioed men, who make time for the gym in the middle of the day. Both groups tend to favor Italian loafers and disavow tobacco. As far as I know very few maintain a couch in their office for naps. (Incidentally, the academic background of one of those whom I was able to observe, which prepared him to run the rule over faculty, was the study of simple organisms found in the mud at the bottom of rivers. Dean Adler worked on the behavior of rats. Go figure, as they say in the movies.)
But being different from the majority of university administrators is not necessarily a bad thing. (Another anecdote: upon being asked how he knew when his former, highly distinguished team manager was lying, a recently retired British soccer player replied that it was when his boss had opened his mouth. Faculties have been known to take a similar attitude to their deans.) And in Dean Adler's case, the most important difference is not sartorial or physical, but intellectual. Again, it may come as little surprise to readers to learn that some people running universities have little interest in what is being taught, and are much more concerned about how many bodies are passing through their institution. Dean Adler is not one of those: he is passionately committed to the liberal arts ideal that survives, albeit tenuously, in America today and insistent that students should have the opportunity for intellectual challenge across the curriculum. It is enormously refreshing to know that at YC the enrollment for a course has mattered less than the potential educational benefit for those students who sign up. Elsewhere, faculty is worried when someone who is not one of their own takes over the reigns: oh dear, an English professor will say, it's a physicist, or (to universal fear when budgets are involved) it's an economist. In my case, it came as a surprise to learn how knowledgeable Dean Adler was about the history of Europe. Rats, of course, have played an important role in that subject, but even so I was not expecting such a keen interest. I have since learnt that one of his hobbies is the admittedly difficult task of searching for historical parallels or guidance for YC. One of his favorite mentors in this area, as many people will have heard, is the distinguished Catholic theologian and educationalist Cardinal Newman. Recently, he has delved further back, to the world of medieval Christian universities. He worried professors recently by pointing out, entirely correctly, that in many times medieval students simply abandoned their teachers and the town in which they were based when they were dissatisfied with the teaching (or municipal tax breaks) they were getting. The valued professors went with their students: those two groups, he pointed out, constituted the university. He may be intrigued to know the fates of two Renaissance lecturers whom I have studied. One was attacked by an academic rival's student partisans - some of whom had the privilege of carrying swords - and therefore left unable to teach for the rest of the semester. Another beat a young local aristocrat in class, and so was set upon by the student's colleagues. By some sleight of hand, the ingenious professor managed to imprison his charges in a church belfry (yes, Christians argue too). The police were called, and the professor was forced to leave the country. It's a bit late now, but as my promotion gift I offer both cases to him as models for dealing with recalcitrant faculty.
William Stenhouse is an assistant professor of History at Yeshiva College.
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From George Sullivan:
I'd like to write a few words about the contributions Dean Adler has made to Academic Computing and to Information Technology as a whole at Yeshiva University. The University has made great strides in computing support to students and faculty during Norm Adler's tenure as Dean. He has been influential in affecting this progress and planning in his role as a member of the IT Advisory Committee (ITAC). As co-chair of that committee, I have had the great pleasure of working with him on IT planning and projects University-wide. Norman is also the Chair of the Academic Computing committee, a subcommittee of ITAC from the Manhattan campuses academic sector.
Some notable initiatives during his tenure include: significant expansion of computers in labs and classrooms; Internet wiring in all dorms and independent housing; Continuing expansion of YC website; Faculty use of Angel web-based course enhancements; Wireless Internet Access; and Recent introduuction of video conferencing.
Dean Adler thinks big dreams and works hard to see them come true. He believes in the mission of the University and extends himself to all those who have needed assistance. Above all he is a mench, with a kind and pleasant manner. He will be missed in his role as Dean, but I loook forward to his coninued presence in academic life here at Yeshiva.
Mr. George J. Sullivan is Director Academic Computing, Networking, and Support Services at Yeshiva University.
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From Elizabeth Stuart:
Dean Norman Adler created what in my mind is a Golden Child of Yeshiva College: the Book Project. It's typical of Dean Adler's ethical drive to have instituted a project of this sort-creative, energizing, unifying, and defined by ever-evolving growth-in response to the devastating and debilitating assassination of Yitzchak Rabin. The value of the Book Project's theme and mission-the promotion of tolerance-requires no commentary. It may be that nothing is more important in the world today than that. Introducing first-year students to the ethics and teachings in tolerance of world-renowned writers, thinkers, politicians, physicians, and social activists-especially when most of these students are just returning from a war- and violence-torn Middle East--is something that sets Yeshiva College apart from most other colleges. While every year the Book Project-in its Orientation Dinner and the year-long series of lectures, film screenings, and discussion groups-has brought our youngest students face-to-face with the works of towering world reformers, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Plato, and Camus, in more recent years it has also brought such bigs to campus: Tim O'Brien two years ago, and last year, Salman Rushdie. Salman Rushdie was the first person of Muslim background to have visited and spoken to the YU community. A few months later, the significance of this visit was further developed in a Conference on Religious Fundamentalism, co-sponsored by the YU Schneier Center and the Book Project. Dean Adler has thus been a powerful force in generating discussions at Yeshiva University about religious tolerance and intolerance, the psychology of religious fundamentalism, and the importance of dialogue.
Dean Adler has stood for the forces of tolerance, academic freedom, and respect for others at Yeshiva College. This, together with his kindness and his humor, makes him dear to my heart and the hearts of many others. I've enjoyed working with him tremendously in his role as Dean.
Dr. Elizabeth Stewart is an assistant professor of English and Director of the YC Book Project.
In looking back on my fifty years of teaching at Yeshiva College, I have seen many significant changes as it tripled in size since 1955, when 450 students were enrolled. I have taught under five deans, but when I think of the single most significant innovation during those five decades, I have no hesitation in singling out the introduction of the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Honors Program and the person who deserves by far the most credit for this innovation: Dean Norman Adler.
I believe that I am in a position to make this statement because I chaired the Faculty Honors Committee that designed the Honors Program throughout the long period of discussion and debate until the faculty adopted it. It was by no means a foregone conclusion that the faculty would eventually agree. When the Roman writer of comedy, Terence, coined the phrase "Quot homines, tot sententiae," "So many people, so many opinions," he must have been prophetically thinking of college faculties. We opened our committee meetings to all interested faculty members, and during the process Dean Adler wisely invited small groups of Faculty members to informal meetings where he presented the case.
The chief opposition, as I recall, came from those who said that an Honors Program would lead to elitism in the student body and, in effect, would lead to a split among the students reminiscent of what we have seen happen so often when a shul grows and then splits because the members develop divergent ideologies. In the end we arrived at the principle of permeability. Students specifically admitted to the Honors Program would have to meet stringent criteria for excellence, but all except four honors courses would remain open to all students who could satisfy the individual instructor that they could master the coursework.
One major question was how many credits to require of students intending to complete the Honors Program and receive a special diploma with a dual credential. We settled, with support from Dean Adler, on 108 credits in residence, requiring at least one extra term from our best educated students.
Finally, we were ready to ask the faculty as a whole to adopt the Honors Program. Again it was Dean Adler who played the key role in explaining the program to the remaining dubious Faculty members one by one, and enlisting their support. When the Faculty met as a whole to discuss the adoption of the program, a miraculous suspension of the laws of nature occurred. The historic vote was unanimous with one abstention.
Now we had a program on paper; but the whole point of the program was to induce faculty to develop new courses that would challenge and appeal to our students. Here a slight practical obstacle became apparent: the low morale of the faculty. It is a gross understatement to say that we were overworked and underpaid. However, Dean Adler took the lead in encouraging faculty members to develop new and exciting courses in their specialties to enhance their own enjoyment of their fields as well as the educations of motivated students. I myself developed a new course dealing with Philo and Josephus as interpreters of the Bible.
When Dean Adler came to us, one of his primary goals was to develop a program that would produce a Rhodes Scholar. Rhodes Scholarships are the most prestigious and most competitive scholarships for graduate study that are open to students throughout this country. During Dean Adler's tenure as dean we produced, as a product of the Honors Program, the first Rhodes Scholar in the history of Yeshiva College. as well as winners of other prestigious fellowships.
Under our dedicated and tireless director, Professor Will Lee, the Honors Program continues to flourish, encouraging Faculty members to produce innovative courses and attracting the most gifted and most devoted students in ever greater numbers. Right now I am teaching an honors course in Roman Civilization, to every session of which I have looked forward with unmitigated enthusiasm.
The Honors Program is only one example of what Dean Adler has done for Yeshiva College. It was his idea, in line with Plato's dictum that "the life that is uncriticized is not worth living," to raise the intellectual level of our students at the very beginning of their stay with us through the book project. Toward this end he conceived the idea of getting a representative group of the Faculty to decide each year to adopt an important and challenging book, of sending a copy to every new student, of having a program featuring a discussion of this book during the week of freshman orientation, of having this book serve as the basis of discussion in all classes of Freshman English Composition, and of having speakers throughout the year discussing various aspects of the book. Many Honors Program students serve as discussion facilitators at each fall's orientation dinner.
I want to close on a personal note. As is well known, through the half century that I have been at Yeshiva College, I have had very few students in Greek and Latin, though I am proud of the fact that some of my students are full professors at such institutions as Harvard, the City University, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew University, Bar Ilan University, and Ben-Gurion University. Many other universities, looking upon themselves as a business, would have long since eliminated a department that attracts so few students, especially when Yeshiva was not doing well financially. To its great credit, Yeshiva has always recognized the crucial importance of the classics as the basis of Western civilization and, in terms of our motto, as a key component in Torah u-Madda. Dean Adler not only recognized this centrality but encouraged me with great enthusiasm at every turn. He has contributed bountifully in manifold ways toward strengthening Yeshiva College as the intellectual fortress of Orthodoxy in America.
Professor Louis H. Feldman, a world renowned expert on the first century Jewish historian Josephus, is the Abraham Wouk Family Professor of Classics and Literature at Yeshiva University.
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From Ruth Bevan
Ten years ago Yeshiva College assumed a spirit of restlessness with the arrival of its new dean, Norman Adler. Of impressive academic credentials as an academic biological psychologist and as an administrator at prestigious schools like the University of Pennsylvania, Dean Adler added luster to Yeshiva College. Hopefully, he would wake up a sleepy institution and push it into the modern era, however that might be defined.
Reinvigoration certainly became the order of the day! Significant accomplishments that have transformed the College can be attributed to Dean Adler - the annual Book Project, the annual Arts Festival (held in conjunction with Stern College) and the Honors Program. Much cajoling, midnight oil and old-fashioned "crisis instigation strategy" produced results. Faculty grumbled about being overburdened. And grumbled some more. Yet faculty became swept up into a governance capacity that had never existed before - cluster chairs, Book Project administrator, Honors program administrator, Writing Center administrator, committee chairs.
The Dean rolled up his sleeves, too. He has been seen carrying pizzas for a faculty lunch. Getting the lighting to work for an event. Hailing cabs in the street for College guests. Everyone knows Dean Adler as a ball of energy, punching codes into his palm pilot or fiddling with his cell phone which plays strains of Mozart's Magic Flute to signal a call, flitting here and there like a butterfly on a summer's day. To keep his attention you must learn to get your point across in maximum three minutes. Maybe that is too long! (Frustrated at first, I actually came to find this good training for concise communication.) He noshes on pretzel rods stored in plastic cylinders strategically placed around his office complex, of which everyone is invited to partake. A favorite toy multicolored iguana from Guatemala appears to crawl across his desktop. On top of the credenza in the same office are family photos, one of himself with his infant grandchild at the piano. "My wife tells me I have to go back to piano lessons if I am to keep the piano." The photo recalls to memory his remark. Towering above the credenza, in a gilded frame, hangs an oil painting of a majestic but fierce eagle sitting atop mountains. When names were given to Jews in Germany, the Adler family inherited the eagle as its namesake. The eagle's fixed gaze unsettles.
On a typical day in the Dean's complex of offices the drama of life is played out. Secretaries, shielded behind counters, work impossible solutions, function as therapists and direct traffic. One knits a baby blanket on her lunch hour as a gift for an expectant faculty member. From the Assistant Dean's office often comes robust laughter, maybe strains of numa, numa. Above the fracas sounds the Dean's voice. He's telling a joke. Faculty gravitate toward the social hub. Students, smiling at the human-ness of it all, hang around.
At day's end, which might be late evening, the Dean chats with faculty about his academic vision for Yeshiva College. He finishes his latest ikebana lily arrangement and sets it on the secretary's station. His face intent, he outlines in the air, with fingers designed to play the piano, the points that he otherwise would list on the chalkboard. He
asks his faculty colleagues what they think. They get immersed in the project, forgetting it is time to go home.
A lover of the arts, I think Dean Adler would agree with John Stuart Mill's understanding of Art:
"No other human productions come so near to perfection as works of pure Art. In all other things, we are, and may reasonably be, satisfied if the degree of excellence is as great as the object immediately in view seems to us to be work; but in Art, the perfection is itself the object. If I were to define Art, I should be inclined to call it, the endeavor after perfection in execution. If we meet with even a piece of mechanical work which bears the marks of being done in this spirit - which is done as if the workman loved it, and tried to make it as good as possible, though something less good would have answered the purpose for which it was ostensibly made - we say that he has worked like an artist. Art, when really cultivated, and not merely practiced empirically, maintains, what it first gave the conception of an ideal Beauty, to be eternally aimed at, though surpassing what can be actually attained, and by this idea it trains us never to be completely satisfied with imperfection in what we ourselves do and are: to idealize, as much as possible, every work we do, and most of all, our own character and lives."1
Approaching his deanship with the spirit of the artist, with a love for the College and a desire to make it "as good as possible," Dean Adler left his indelible mark. Over the last ten years Yeshiva College has grown immeasurably in developing the art of learning. It has raised its expectations and, consequently, its standards. It stands as an institution of excellence This will remain as Dean Adler's legacy.
Striving toward excellence involves risk-taking. Mediocrity shelters itself in a safe harbor. It demands less effort, less money, less talent, less vision. It grinds its wheels methodically, creating the illusion of competence. Striving toward excellence can bring mistakes, even moments of turmoil. The temptation to settle for the safe can be powerful. Will we all be brave enough to continue pushing Yeshiva College forward?
Dean Adler will now assume other duties and occupy other office space as University Professor and as the University's ambassador-at-large for special projects.
The eagle in the gilded frame has already found a new home. Dean Adler is eminently qualified for his new function as "visionary" for the University; he breathed intellectual life into Yeshiva College. Indeed his parting project is most appropriate - initiating a curriculum review of Yeshiva College. Upon his arrival ten years ago, Dean Adler required all departments to undergo an outside academic review designed to upgrade programs, to assess needs and to chart future development. The reviews began what never left Yeshiva College - a community discussion about learning, about teaching, about academic purpose and objectives. The discussion is now being intensified with the introduction of the curriculum review.
The faculty is concerned about the future of Yeshiva College. It, too, has worked assiduously with the Dean these last ten years to create academic programs of enhanced excellence and to improve the life of faculty and students alike. It waits to be assured that this work has not been in vain and that it will participate in making those decisions that will shape its future. The anxiety of faculty is testimony in itself to the accomplishments Dean Adler leaves as his legacy.
Dean Adler - Norm: We shall miss you in our immediate midst but are consoled by knowing that you are never far away. Our very best wishes go with you and our gratitude for sharing with us your love of life.
1. John Stuart Mill. "The Value of Ancient Philosophy." The Inaugural Address to the University of St. Andrews, in Amelie Oksenberg Rorty. The Many Faces of Philosophy. Oxford UP. 2003. pp. 332-3.
Dr. Ruth A. Bevan is the David W. Petegorsky Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva College, chairperson of the Social Sciences cluster, and director of the R. Arthur Schneier Center for International Affairs at Yeshiva University.
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From David Johnson:
When the last laurel leaves were found in Hellas, when last the oracles were spoken at Delphi, you might still have seen there, in Greek twilight, the iron chair of Pindar. Pausanias tells us that whenever the poet came to Delphi he would sit in his chair of iron and sing his songs to Apollo, to the god of light and lord of the silver bow.
Now, the purpose of deans is to make iron chairs for poets. In my travels in academia I have found only one dean, only one maker, who understood this, and did this, and he shall be sorely missed by the wise of Yeshiva College.
So let us work while there is light. For the night cometh, when no man can work.
David Johnson is associate professor of Philosophy at Yeshiva College.
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From Joyce Jesinowski:
I just wanted to put on the record my complete and utter pleasure in serving as Norman's Assistant Dean. He found in Yeshiva College the seeds of greatness and he nurtured those seeds faithfully and joyfully in the time he was Dean. The Honors College, the Arts Festival, the Book Project, closer and more "pastoral" advising, the professionalization of the office, increased collegiality and faculty governance--all of these are his signal contributions to Yeshiva College. He fostered the faculty, increasing the number of teaching positions, but also encouraging the emergence of leadership in the sterling faculty members who are so active in shaping the college today. He loved you students. He always saw your possibility of "sparkling" as he so often put it. He graciously allowed me to participate fully in the administration of all aspects of the College--particularly giving me the pleasure of the Arts Festival and withdrawing from an activity that he initiated so that i could be the advisor.
Yeshiva owes an unmeasurable debt to Norman Adler. I hope that you (at least figuratively) raise him up on your shoulders and shower him with the praise he deserves. The College will not easily replace him.
Dr. Joyce Jesionowski is a former assistant dean of Yeshiva College and is currently teaching at SUNY-Binghamton.
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From William Stenhouse:
It will not come as a surprise to readers of this paper that Norman Adler is not like the other university administrators that I've come across, in my admittedly limited experience. They tend to be either plump, satisfied and polished executives or lean, often mustachioed men, who make time for the gym in the middle of the day. Both groups tend to favor Italian loafers and disavow tobacco. As far as I know very few maintain a couch in their office for naps. (Incidentally, the academic background of one of those whom I was able to observe, which prepared him to run the rule over faculty, was the study of simple organisms found in the mud at the bottom of rivers. Dean Adler worked on the behavior of rats. Go figure, as they say in the movies.)
But being different from the majority of university administrators is not necessarily a bad thing. (Another anecdote: upon being asked how he knew when his former, highly distinguished team manager was lying, a recently retired British soccer player replied that it was when his boss had opened his mouth. Faculties have been known to take a similar attitude to their deans.) And in Dean Adler's case, the most important difference is not sartorial or physical, but intellectual. Again, it may come as little surprise to readers to learn that some people running universities have little interest in what is being taught, and are much more concerned about how many bodies are passing through their institution. Dean Adler is not one of those: he is passionately committed to the liberal arts ideal that survives, albeit tenuously, in America today and insistent that students should have the opportunity for intellectual challenge across the curriculum. It is enormously refreshing to know that at YC the enrollment for a course has mattered less than the potential educational benefit for those students who sign up. Elsewhere, faculty is worried when someone who is not one of their own takes over the reigns: oh dear, an English professor will say, it's a physicist, or (to universal fear when budgets are involved) it's an economist. In my case, it came as a surprise to learn how knowledgeable Dean Adler was about the history of Europe. Rats, of course, have played an important role in that subject, but even so I was not expecting such a keen interest. I have since learnt that one of his hobbies is the admittedly difficult task of searching for historical parallels or guidance for YC. One of his favorite mentors in this area, as many people will have heard, is the distinguished Catholic theologian and educationalist Cardinal Newman. Recently, he has delved further back, to the world of medieval Christian universities. He worried professors recently by pointing out, entirely correctly, that in many times medieval students simply abandoned their teachers and the town in which they were based when they were dissatisfied with the teaching (or municipal tax breaks) they were getting. The valued professors went with their students: those two groups, he pointed out, constituted the university. He may be intrigued to know the fates of two Renaissance lecturers whom I have studied. One was attacked by an academic rival's student partisans - some of whom had the privilege of carrying swords - and therefore left unable to teach for the rest of the semester. Another beat a young local aristocrat in class, and so was set upon by the student's colleagues. By some sleight of hand, the ingenious professor managed to imprison his charges in a church belfry (yes, Christians argue too). The police were called, and the professor was forced to leave the country. It's a bit late now, but as my promotion gift I offer both cases to him as models for dealing with recalcitrant faculty.
William Stenhouse is an assistant professor of History at Yeshiva College.
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From George Sullivan:
I'd like to write a few words about the contributions Dean Adler has made to Academic Computing and to Information Technology as a whole at Yeshiva University. The University has made great strides in computing support to students and faculty during Norm Adler's tenure as Dean. He has been influential in affecting this progress and planning in his role as a member of the IT Advisory Committee (ITAC). As co-chair of that committee, I have had the great pleasure of working with him on IT planning and projects University-wide. Norman is also the Chair of the Academic Computing committee, a subcommittee of ITAC from the Manhattan campuses academic sector.
Some notable initiatives during his tenure include: significant expansion of computers in labs and classrooms; Internet wiring in all dorms and independent housing; Continuing expansion of YC website; Faculty use of Angel web-based course enhancements; Wireless Internet Access; and Recent introduuction of video conferencing.
Dean Adler thinks big dreams and works hard to see them come true. He believes in the mission of the University and extends himself to all those who have needed assistance. Above all he is a mench, with a kind and pleasant manner. He will be missed in his role as Dean, but I loook forward to his coninued presence in academic life here at Yeshiva.
Mr. George J. Sullivan is Director Academic Computing, Networking, and Support Services at Yeshiva University.
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From Elizabeth Stuart:
Dean Norman Adler created what in my mind is a Golden Child of Yeshiva College: the Book Project. It's typical of Dean Adler's ethical drive to have instituted a project of this sort-creative, energizing, unifying, and defined by ever-evolving growth-in response to the devastating and debilitating assassination of Yitzchak Rabin. The value of the Book Project's theme and mission-the promotion of tolerance-requires no commentary. It may be that nothing is more important in the world today than that. Introducing first-year students to the ethics and teachings in tolerance of world-renowned writers, thinkers, politicians, physicians, and social activists-especially when most of these students are just returning from a war- and violence-torn Middle East--is something that sets Yeshiva College apart from most other colleges. While every year the Book Project-in its Orientation Dinner and the year-long series of lectures, film screenings, and discussion groups-has brought our youngest students face-to-face with the works of towering world reformers, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Plato, and Camus, in more recent years it has also brought such bigs to campus: Tim O'Brien two years ago, and last year, Salman Rushdie. Salman Rushdie was the first person of Muslim background to have visited and spoken to the YU community. A few months later, the significance of this visit was further developed in a Conference on Religious Fundamentalism, co-sponsored by the YU Schneier Center and the Book Project. Dean Adler has thus been a powerful force in generating discussions at Yeshiva University about religious tolerance and intolerance, the psychology of religious fundamentalism, and the importance of dialogue.
Dean Adler has stood for the forces of tolerance, academic freedom, and respect for others at Yeshiva College. This, together with his kindness and his humor, makes him dear to my heart and the hearts of many others. I've enjoyed working with him tremendously in his role as Dean.
Dr. Elizabeth Stewart is an assistant professor of English and Director of the YC Book Project.