Professor Dan Bauer Honored at Annual Awards Banquet

He was recognized for 38 years of service to the College

Dan Bauer, professor of anthropology and sociology and director of Technology Clinic, has been elected to emeritus status and was recognized tonight for his service to Lafayette at the annual pre-Commencement reception, dinner, and awards ceremony. President Daniel H. Weiss read the following citation. Bauer is retiring after 38 years.

Read about Bauer.

DAN F. BAUER

Dan Bauer once described Lafayette’s Technology Clinics, whose development he has nurtured since the program’s inception in 1986, as an opportunity for six or seven students representing all four disciplines to pool their expertise to solve “potential back-burner problems.”   Although the problems may be “back-burner,” his teaching has ignited significant intellectual sparks for his students (and earned him a Marquis Distinguished Teaching Award).

One grateful Clinic participant explained how Dan taught “through hands-on experience that the hardest part of solving a problem is defining it and understanding it; that the most brilliant technical solution is useless unless it addresses the social, political, economic, and human issues surrounding it; and that even if it addresses all of this, it needs to be communicated effectively in order to be adopted.”

A Lafayette faculty member since 1972, Dan served as head of the Anthropology and Sociology Department from 1986-98.  The real-world problems that he and his students solve mirror the real-world situations in which he immerses himself as an anthropologist.   Major research projects have taken him to Ethiopia, Mexico, and Peru, and his fieldwork has been supported by, among other awards, a Mellon Research Fellowship.  His fascination with technology and with other cultures is also impressively reflected through his photographs, a number of which have been displayed on campus.

A young alumna praised Dan as the type of professor who motivates undergraduates to “work with him, not for him.”  Dan, that quality has also made you a superb colleague, and we warmly applaud your service as we welcome you to emeritus status.