Among those filing into Maxwell Auditorium on April 25 were the Chancellor, the vice chancellor for academic affairs and her long-tenured predecessor, other members of the Chancellor’s cabinet, various deans and department chairs—a Who’s Who of Syracuse University leaders and scholars of the past 15 years. Most members of the Maxwell School Advisory Board were on hand, too, as were scattered clusters of staff and students. They had gathered to receive John L. Palmer’s farewell address, and to hear others testify to his accomplishments.

Palmer is leaving the deanship at the end of the current academic year, and this event was, for all intents and purposes, the official beginning of his exodus. As the room filled and then hushed, it seemed likely the sentiment would soon enough grow thick. 

From the outset, however, this event proved as unpretentious and judiciously self-deprecating as the honoree himself. The profound observations were leavened with jest and irony—at one point, Palmer himself was prompted to heckle a speaker—and the most telling, significant aspect of this ceremony was how at ease everyone seemed. In 15 years, Syracuse has grown very comfortable with John Palmer, while depending upon his fiscal expertise and general counsel. Palmer’s role at the School and on campus has grown to fit his personality: practical, quiet, famously competent, and yet a little less austere than at first apparent.

“One of the University’s most successful deans,” is how Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw described Palmer in kicking off the guest comments. “A tireless contributor to the well-being of the University as a whole. John indeed has been a University citizen.” According to Shaw, Maxwell is stronger fiscally—“of course, the University had to suffer for that,” he joked—academically, and in national acclaim than before Palmer.

“We are the beneficiaries of John Palmer’s deep love and commitment to the Maxwell School and Syracuse University,” Shaw later added.

Ford Rowan, alumnus and chair of the Maxwell School Advisory Board, called upon his memory of statements made by the late John Nagle, who taught Rowan’s very first class at Max­well. Nagle had warned students that inno­vation faces resistance from en­trenched interests, that motivation is difficult to sustain, and that basic change takes time and offers disappointments. “Your potential strengths,” Nagle had said, “are new ideas, energy, and time.”

“I think John Nagle had it right,” Rowan reflected, “and I think, as regards time, John Palmer has spent his wisely. His ideas and his energy have paid off here.”

Virginia Denton, SU’s director of Design and Construction, was on hand, she said, to acknowledge that Eggers Hall is “an important part of John’s legacy.” She said the building functions as a monument to Palmer’s vision, his “courage to challenge easy ways of thinking,” and his sophisticated understanding of “how people learn, how people teach, and the principle that learning is enhanced by vibrant human interaction.” And then, acknowledging the centrality of Eggers Café in such in­ter­action, she jokingly bemoaned that every academic building she’d overseen since centers around a café.

David Smith, SU’s vice president for enrollment management, has served with Palmer on the Chancellor’s Academic Cabinet for 15 years. Despite the Cabinet’s proclivity for debate, he said, “Everyone agrees: John Palmer will be missed.” (The Cabinet had considered reserving Palmer a permanent post-retirement seat at the table, Smith said wryly. “But we reminded each other: This is a day of tribute, not a day of sentencing.”)

Kristi Andersen, former chair of political science, described how the Palmer years had supplied the faculty with increased resources, a stronger interdisciplinary spirit, and (again) the assets of Eggers Hall. She complimented the dean for his intellectual breadth, analytical capability, openness, and honesty.

Last to speak before the dean himself was SU Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Deborah Freund. She too articulated Palmer’s fiscal and leadership skills, and she too quipped about his ability to extract funding from the University budget. And then she offered the afternoon’s big surprise. Upon his retirement, Freund announced, John Palmer will be appointed a University Professor—SU’s highest honor for faculty members, conferred on only six others in the past two decades. 

Then it was time for John Palmer to make his speech.

>> Continue to speech

—Dana Cooke

This article appeared in the Spring 2003 print edition of Maxwell Perspective; © 2003 Maxwell School of Syracuse University. To request a copy, e-mail dlcooke@maxwell.syr.edu.