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Three retiring professors reflect on life, learning, and a collective 111 years in Centre classrooms
Larry Matheny, Harlan Professor of Government (1966-2005)
Marshall Wilt ’64, Professor of Physics (1967-78, 1980-2005)
Milton Scarborough, Professor of Philosophy and Religion (1969-2005)
Exploring the Human Condition
Larry Matheny is a quiet man who keeps his personal life and pleasures mostly to himself. But there is one thing about which he is both vocal and passionate: the importance of a liberal education.
“If we allow them to do so, the liberal arts will lift us up from mere emotion and gut reactions into thoughtfulness; they will free us from mindless bigotry, from vulgar snobbery, and from cheap gossip,” he once told an opening convocation audience. “The ideal product of a liberal education—never fully attained—is a person who is intelligent, competent, self-assured, articulate, sophisticated, and humane.”
The words are as true today as when he when he gave his impassioned plea in 1992.
Closely related is his belief in the importance of independent inquiry.
“The mission of a college or a university is to try to help train the mind,” he says, his voice taking on the resonating, riveting authority that has captivated and inspired countless students. “It is not, not, NOT to impart a particular ideology.”
And in 39 years of teaching political philosophy at Centre he has striven to develop in his students the ability to weigh the information available and then to make up their own minds.
“Objectivity constantly eludes us,” he acknowledges, but adds that this does not give license to proselytize. Above all, he believes his responsibility as a teacher is to inspire enough curiosity that students will “never take things at face value.”
Matheny did not originally plan on a career in the classroom. But after a brief undergraduate flirtation with law school he turned to academe, scratching the law itch by teaching constitutional law.
What is it about his field that speaks to him? In part it’s the universal nature of its questions.
“The truth of the matter is that in politics, you’re talking about the human condition,” he says. “And because you’re talking about the human condition, there is no bottom and there is no end.”
There is no clear answer, either, which sends him, inevitably, back to the books. “Over the years,” he confesses, “I have simply become addicted to libraries. No matter where I am, I have to have access to reference documents.”
With such curiosity, one might think he would embrace the rich possibilities of Google, but no. He does not even have a computer on his desk.
When asked what one book he would take to the proverbial desert island, he immediately requests three, then slips in a fourth for good measure: Gulliver’s Travels, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, and, tied for third place, the collected works of Shakespeare and the Authorized Version (King James) of the Bible.
As a student at the University of Virginia—that architectural marvel and hobby of Thomas Jefferson’s old age—Matheny learned to appreciate the close ties between politics and public buildings. “An awful lot of architecture, especially public architecture, is political in a very dramatic and intended way,” he points out.
And so he repeatedly took students to two of the great cities for grand public buildings—Washington, D.C., and London, England—often joining forces with Mary Sweeny or Paul Cantrell, both English professors, for the British tours. He also spent four summers at the University of Oxford, teaching mostly American students in the city of dreaming spires. Architecture has remained an abiding interest.
In a 2000 commencement address titled “Was It Worth It?” he suggested to the soon-to-be graduates that perhaps the greatest value of education is “the courage it gives us to seek and to keep seeking a life’s work that is deeply satisfying.”
On the eve of his last commencement one wonders how he would answer his own question. As he looks back over a career spent exploring the life of the mind, surrounded by his beloved books, the answer, he says, is “Yes. Very much so, yes.”
—D.F.J.
A Corner of a Lab and a Desk
Marshall Wilt ’64 is sitting in his Olin Hall office fielding questions in a characteristic pose—legs crossed, leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head. When asked about the greatest challenge of his 36-year Centre career, he doesn’t hesitate: “Motivating 20 to 30 students to learn as much as I want them to.”
And as generations of students will testify, that is a lot.
Following in the footsteps of his father, Paxton M. Wilt ’30, the younger Wilt enrolled at Centre in 1961. His most vivid memory from that time is the “serious academic atmosphere,” in which few students had cars, virtually all teachers lived near campus, and classes were held Monday through Friday and till noon on Saturday.
After graduating summa cum laude, he earned a Ph.D. at Vanderbilt. Returning to teach at Centre in the fall of 1967 required a bit of an adjustment—he was only three years older than his students—but he fell into a comfortable routine.
“I made friends, played basketball with students, and started research,” he says. “I had a marvelous crop of students, and life was easier than in graduate school when I worked 110 hours a week. That first year [back at Centre] I cut back to around 90.”
As personally rewarding as Wilt’s early teaching years were, the economic rewards were meager. In 1978 he accepted a position with Continental Group, the world’s biggest packaging company.
His work was primarily to discover new forms of coating for metal beverage cans that would prevent acidic drinks from leaching into the metal, altering the flavor. His efforts led to 10 patents.
Yet despite the monetary rewards of commercial research, Wilt wasn’t as happy. “It was challenging,” he says, “but not as challenging or gratifying as motivating students.” In 1980 he returned to Centre.
Though known for his serious demeanor, Wilt possesses a sense of humor as keen as it is dry. He recalls that when a childhood friend drove unannounced from Washington state to Centre’s campus and showed up in an 8 a.m. class, Wilt spontaneously introduced the visitor as a famous scientist. During the lecture, Wilt allowed his distinguished guest to correct him periodically. Only the next morning did he reveal to his amazed students that they had been diligently trying to follow the insights of a game warden.
And while Wilt has lived a life of the mind, he has also explored the physical side as an athlete and a bit of a daredevil. He played varsity basketball at Centre, has been an airplane pilot since 1972, and in 1976 took up white-water canoeing. He admits a willingness to take risks, but adds, “I’ve always tried to do it in a calculating way.”
Wilt has played many roles in his time at the College: grant writer, summer science program director, host of a physics institute for high school teachers, chair of the math and science division. But the role of which he is clearly most proud is that of collaborative researcher with Centre students.
“Joint research really does have a transformative effect,” he says. “I’ve seen how it’s inspired and motivated a number of students to become Ph.D. scientists or engineers or doctors.”
During his years at Centre, Wilt has published 20 papers in internationally recognized scientific journals. Most have included Centre undergraduates as co-authors.
After retirement? “I’m going to travel—France, Italy, Germany, and maybe Russia and the Baltic states—and spend more time outdoors hiking and boating. And I’m going to continue to do research at Centre. I’ll have a corner of a lab and a desk.”
That Wilt will continue research is no surprise. His reserved manner can mask a passion for acquiring and passing on knowledge. It’s a safe bet that if a bright young man or woman ventures into Wilt’s corner of the lab with questions, the student won’t leave empty-handed.
—Mike Norris
Director of Communications
Serendipity
If it hadn’t been for a serendipitous study break, Milton Scarborough might not have spent the better part of four decades teaching at Centre College.
In 1969, while a graduate student at Duke, he was crossing the lobby of the library when he heard someone shout, “Phone call for Milton Scarborough!” He picked up the receiver and took a call from Charles Whittle, then Centre dean, who was passing through Durham and thinking about an opening in Centre’s religion department.
That impromptu phone interview led to a campus interview, and eventually to what would become Scarborough’s career-long position. He often wonders what would have happened had he not been in the lobby to take Whittle’s call.
Another serendipitous early-career moment led to Scarborough’s involvement in world religions. One day, the associate dean, Harold Hanson ’55, said to him, “We have a big sign-up in world religions. Would you be interested in teaching a section?”
Scarborough protested that he had never taken even a survey class in the subject.
With a curious smile Hanson said, “I repeat. We have a big sign-up in world religions. Would you like to take a section?”
“However gently,” recalls Scarborough, “I was being pressed into service. Trying to learn about Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism in three weeks and a term was pure hell. But I soon realized it was one of the best things ever to have happened to me. I was forced to put my parochial, Western outlook into a global context.
“And that,” he concludes, “was a gift.”
As the years passed and America became religiously more and more diverse, his charge gradually became clear.
“The religions I was teaching were not on the other side of the planet,” he says. “They had arrived in America’s heartland. My mission here was to ready students for the globalization of religions and a religiously plural America.”
A quick glance through the Scarborough file reveals a life not bound by classroom walls. In one photo, a young Scarborough shows nice form on the tennis court (he was co-coach of the tennis team for 11 years). In another he sits cross-legged in front of a tipi holding a peace pipe. Here’s a newspaper article on getting lost in a Patagonian blizzard. There’s one on his trip to India.
Although he officially retires in June, he will be back in the fall for one last semester of teaching before moving his office to what its residents jokingly call “Jurassic Park”: the Cheek Emeritus House.
Will he miss teaching? “After 36 years you can always surprise yourself,” he says. “I will miss getting to know and befriending young people—but I won’t miss grading papers.”
—Tim Ungs
Media Associate
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