Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
M.L. KING SCHOLAR McBAY Sullivan Praises 'Legendary' Teacher By Kenneth D. Campbell News Office Morehouse College Professor Henry C. McBay disciplined, drove and encouraged 43 undergraduate chemistry students at the historically black college to get doctorate degrees in chemistry over the past 46 years. Last week, President Charles M. Vest, Provost Mark S. Wrighton, US Secretary of Human Services Louis W. Sullivan and about 40 graduates of Morehouse College paid tribute at MIT to the 76-year-old chemist, whom MIT honored as its first Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar. Dr. McBay is still teaching at Clark-Atlanta University, of which Morehouse College is a part. "Don't think about retirement," Secretary Sullivan told Dr. McBay at the Festschrift Dinner Thursday night at the Cambridge Marriot Hotel before about 80 invited guests. Dr. Sullivan was president of Morehouse Medical School before joining the President's cabinet. He admitted to the amused audience that he had not taken a chemistry course from McBay, who has a fearsome reputation "as one of the most demanding professors" on the Atlanta, Ga. campus. "Henry, during my time at Morehouse, scheduling conflicts prevented me from taking a class from you, and that may explain my choice to be a physician rather than a chemist," Dr. Sullivan said. "You had a way of drawing students into chemistry. Your classes were legendary. Students would talk about your lectures over dinner, in the dorms and at parties, fascinated with your engaging style and singular ability to make the subject matter immediately relevant." Dr. Sullivan said, "You told your students that education was an edifice built on careful scholarship, hard work and gritty determination, and they learned that lesson well. . . That is why so many of our nation's black chemists are your former students." In his closing tribute, Secretary Sullivan said, "As a chemist, you have long been an important name in the field, beginning with your dissertation (at the University of Chicago) on the reactions of atoms and free radicals in solutions. As a role model, you have set a fine example for others to follow, and many students did follow your example. And as a member of the black community, you have helped make all black men and women, indeed all Americans, more educated, more independent, more scholarly and more effective." Dr. McBay, beaming, responded, "There are no words in my command to tell you how pleased I am, how flattered I am, how unbelievable I find all this." He said that teaching the "amazing young men" he has had as students "has been the most important thing in my life." Professor Wrighton said he believed the key quote of the week's program was to the effect that "Professor McBay doesn't just teach chemistry; he teaches people." President Vest described the thinking behind MIT's 17th celebration of the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his introduction of Dr. Sullivan Thursday night. "Our theme for these events," Dr. Vest said, "has had to do with closing the gap between the ideal of Dr. King's dream and the reality of our everyday experience. Despite much progress during recent decades, this gap persists and remains very difficult to close, in part because it represents a difference between what we would like to believe of ourselves and what we observe as reality. Nonetheless, those we honor tonight have demonstrated clearly that we can make a difference." The 40 Morehouse men in the audience showed their belief in that statement at the close of the dinner. They crossed arms and clasped hands in a room-wide curve, and with Secretary Sullivan leading, sang the Morehouse College hymn. During the week of events with students from MIT, from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, and from the Massachusetts Pre-Engineering Program, Dr. McBay frequently expressed his color-blind philosophy toward learning. He gave his views in his response at the Thursday afternoon close of the two-day program, in which 11 of his former chemistry students, now university professors of chemistry or research chemists in industry, delivered technical papers at MIT in his honor and several gave personal tributes to him. Dr. McBay described his battles and success as a 15-year-old, 5-foot 3- inch, 115-pound quarterback. "I knew I could do it," he said, identifying a key to his philosophy of teaching. "I tell my students, 'When you're in my classroom, I don't give a damn who your grandmother was, I don't care what your color is, I don't even care what your name is. In this hour, we are doing chemistry. You are competing with freshmen at Heidelberg, at Berkeley and MIT, because one day you will meet them. Your color means nothing here. There's nothing about man--human, man, woman--that lives in the spectral domain. "'I will leave a brown corpse, and if you don't tend it very quickly, it may be purple. But that doesn't matter here, in chemistry. I want to know: Can you do this? If I have any message, it is: I can't be intimidated. . . The human domain has nothing to do with how black, brown or blond you are. I consider that to be sound and fury!'"