Carleton College Professor Perry Mason Named to Sawyer Chair

Carleton College

Contact: Marla Holt, Director
MHolt@acs.carleton.edu
(507) 646-4183

Oct. 11, 1999
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Perry C. Mason Named to Endowed Professorship

Carleton College Philosophy Professor Honored for His 31 Years of Service

Northfield, Minn. - The Carleton College Board of Trustees recently approved the appointment of Professor of Philosophy Perry C. Mason as the College's first John E. Sawyer Professor of Liberal Learning. The five-year appointment honors Mason for his skills in mentoring colleagues in teaching, scholarship, and service, and for his ability to forge consensus on difficult issues, particularly through his leadership in important administrative roles and on key committees.

Mason is well respected among his colleagues at Carleton. "Perry is an outstanding philosopher, teacher of philosophy, and champion of the core values of liberal inquiry. He is also our finest academic citizen, a statesman-colleague who takes on the tough ones: key search committees, sexual harassment codes, controversial position papers, while also serving as behind-the-scenes counselor to colleagues and administrators," said Richard Crouter, a colleague of Mason's for the past 30 years and the John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies at Carleton. "How he finds time for trout fishing is a great mystery," Crouter added, referring to one of Mason's favorite leisure time activities.

Mason's areas of scholarly interest focus on the philosophy of religion, ancient Greek philosophy, the philosophy of psychiatry, and the philosophy of the social sciences. He regularly teaches courses in those areas, as well as environmental ethics.

He received his B.A. degree from Baylor University in 1961 and a bachelor of divinity degree from Harvard University in 1964. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University before joining the Carleton faculty in 1968.

Mason has provided Carleton with an extraordinary amount of leadership, through his many appointments on college committees and his service in administrative offices. Most recently, he ran the day-to-day operations of the president's office during a presidential sabbatical leave. Mason has been chair of the faculty and of the philosophy department, spent three years as the vice president for external relations, and has served five separate terms on the College Council, an elected group whose members govern policies that concern the life of the campus at large. He also has been a key player in long-range planning for the College's future, having served on the Committee on the 21st Century, and chairing the Committee on Priorities for the 1990s.

One of his more influential roles has been as a mentor to younger faculty. "I learned an awful lot from Perry about how Carleton works," said Associate Professor of Music Justin London, who has spent the last eight years jogging at lunchtime with Mason. "During those noontime jogs, he gave me a sense of what Carleton's values are and why it's important for the faculty to have a sense of the collective well-being of the College. He also shared his keen understanding of how the administration works and helped me to see the bigger picture-when something was worth squawking about and when it was not."

The Sawyer Professorship was established through a generous gift to the College by one of its former trustees, Francis T. (Fay) Vincent, Jr. Given in appreciation for the leadership provided by Carleton President Stephen R. Lewis, Jr., the professorship is named for Lewis's mentor, the late John E. Sawyer, a former president of Williams College and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Lewis and Vincent both graduated from Williams in 1960, and Lewis later taught economics there, as well as serving as provost under Sawyer. According to Lewis, Sawyer was a masterful planner who was adept at "putting people together"-he took great pains in matching up younger faculty with appropriate mentors and was keenly aware of how the right mix of human relationships could enable an institution to make momentous changes.

As president of Williams from 1961 to 1973, Sawyer abolished the college's dominant fraternity system, oversaw its transition to coeducation, restructured its academic calendar, and diversified its student body. His leadership there changed the face of liberal arts education, and he was seen by many as a visionary. "Ask any liberal arts college president to name the most notable presidents of this century, and Jack Sawyer's name is invariably mentioned," said Harry C. Payne, president of Williams at the time of Sawyer's death in 1995.

"Not a day goes by in my professional life that I don't use something Jack taught me," Lewis said. He praised Mason as the logical choice to inaugurate the Sawyer Professorship, due to his skill in "holding a place like Carleton together."

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