Re: A change in administration of the List

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sun Aug 22 1999 - 19:44:08 EDT


At 3:25 PM -0500 8/22/99, Edward Hobbs wrote:
>Dear Colleagues of the B-Greek List:
>
>With both relief and sadness, it is time for me to resign as Co-Chair
>of this List.
>
>The burden of too many obligations, which means inadequate time to
>devote to the task, plus guilt for not pulling my share of the load,
>and advancing age (I am close to my 73rd birthday). conspire to
>press me to announce my resignation.
>
>Jonathan Robie (ListOwner) and Carl Conrad (Co-Chair) have known for
>many months of my intention; and they have aleady arranged for the
>appointment of my successor, a choice which I enthusiastically support.

Yes, I knew that this was coming, and I knew that Edward wanted to do it
before the Fall term begins at Wellesley, but I really am saddened by the
coming of this announcement. I will say that it is true that a successor to
Edward has been appointed and will be announced soon by Jonathan in his
role as List-Owner.

I cannot express how profoundly grateful I feel to Edward for the
confidence, advice, and reassurance in times of doubt with which he has
favored me ever since those earlier days with David Marotta when the list
was at majordomo@virginia.edu. Although he was the one originally appointed
a chair of B-Greek, he was also the one who deemed it wise that the chair
be a shared "hot seat." In the years since that step was taken, the
list-administrators have never questioned the wisdom of this shared
responsibility and have been determined to fill any vacancy in the co-chair
slot as soon as possible in an effort to preserve the collegiality and
mutuality of that shared responsibility.

Edward and I have rarely disagreed with each other on academic questions,
but I cannot remember a single occasion upon which we've disagreed on
questions of list-administration as they have arisen, and there have
certainly been several occasions when we were glad to have each other's
counsel before reaching a decision. I wouldn't be so foolish as to say that
we've never erred, but I'm gratified to recollect that we have been
together on actions that we've taken and on the reasons for taking those
actions.

I really don't want to say more on this occasion, other than to express the
hope that there may be an opportunity in Boston in November (SBL meets
there the week before Thanksgiving) when B-Greekers who are there may find
a more appropriate and substantial means of expressing gratitude to Edward
for his leadership. I'm not a member of SBL myself (I am, after all, a
Classicist, not a Biblical scholar) and I haven't been in Boston since I
defended a doctoral dissertation way back in the 60's, but I do think that
a trip to home of the bean and the cod would be in order for no other
reason than to celebrate Edward's meritorious labors, not the least of
which has been his service to B-Greek.

With warmth from a colleague on the "hot seat,"

Carl W. Conrad
Co-Chair, B-Greek List
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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