By Stan Seltzer

At a recent meeting of the Committee on Journals, Deanna Haunsperger asserted that everybody has a Math Values blog post in them.  And I'd swear, she was looking at me.

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The career-advice literature is full of articles about how to give a research talk, how to give a talk for undergraduates, how to give a job interview talk at a liberal arts college, etc. But, never have I seen a piece on giving a talk at a retirement reception for someone you are not nuts about. It may be time to fill this gap in the literature.

A number of years ago, I was asked to make some remarks at the retirement reception for my dean, who I'll refer to as Dean.

As I began as department chair, my feeling toward Dean could well be described as contempt, and—to me at least—it appeared that his feelings toward me were not much more positive. I hasten to add that over the years, our relationship improved. I well remember his laughter when I walked into his office to report what I perceived as a major crisis. He assured me that it was no big deal, and he was right.  We occasionally saw eye-to-eye on a few delicate issues, and—over time—developed a pretty good working relationship. I think of it as a case of mutual grudging respect: I respected the fact that Dean was the dean, and he recognized that I was chair of one of the larger departments on campus. Nevertheless, I was not fond of Dean.

Thus, it came as quite a surprise when his administrative assistant asked whether I would be willing to say a few words at his retirement reception. Lest you think I exaggerate the nature of our relationship, I recall that the request to speak came with an admonition. It wasn’t “Keep it under five minutes” or some such. It was, “Be nice.”  Needless to say, I agreed.

Now, public speaking is not my specialty. It is Dean's. (More about that in a moment.)  And just to compound that, I learned subsequently that the event would be held in the lobby of the theater, with the chair of the theater department—someone well versed and very accomplished behind a microphone—as the emcee.

But, the real challenge was to keep it positive, and of course there were accomplishments over the course of Dean's 20-year tenure that I could mention, without sacrificing all credibility with my colleagues by sugar-coating things completely.

I have believed for a long time that if you listen to enough 60s music, you can find inspiration for almost anything you need to say. In light of the length of Dean’s tenure, Sgt. Pepper seemed like a possibility ("It was 20 years ago today"), but that wasn't going to work, in part because I had used it at our department senior reception event the previous week. At the time, Chevrolet was using a Bob Seger song in its commercials for Silverados, and even though that was from the 80s, it seemed to describe the man. It didn't hurt that I had once served Bob Seger breakfast (true); nor that the event was to be held one day after Seger's birthday.

So, after some obligatory throat-clearing remarks, I began,

Twenty years now

Where'd they go?

Twenty years

I don’t know

Sit and I wonder sometimes

Where they’ve gone

And then all the blah, blah, blah. Be nice. Be nice. Be nice. It so happens that the campus paper had asked me to describe Dean. Even though my response did not make it into the article, I mentioned this because if asked again, I would have had a different answer. It would have been (cue the music)

Like a rock, standin' arrow straight

Like a rock, chargin' from the gate

Like a rock, carryin' the weight

Like a rock

I think it worked.

By coincidence, when we returned in the fall, I happened to be behind him in a buffet line. I guess he acknowledged my remarks. But what I really remember is that he asked if I would be willing to speak at his funeral! I resisted the temptation to wisecrack, and I have never asked whether he was serious.

A few years later, I learned that in his public speaking class (he had retired as dean and returned to the faculty), he was showing clips from the reception, including my portion.  (It is probably a good thing I didn't know that anyone was recording things for posterity.)  I've been assured it was not in a what-not-to-do context.

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I am not putting this out there as a model. The real moral of the story is simply this: everyone has a Math Values blog post in them.

Stan Seltzer is a professor emeritus at Ithaca College and chair of MAA’s Council on Publications. He has been co-editor of Spectrum, editor of MAA Textbooks, and an associate editor of Classroom Resources Materials (CRM).