Mr. Greer
June 2016
I only knew him a few years; I remember him as one of the stern faces in the front row when I interviewd at A&M. I couldn’t read his face, and didn’t know if my talk was doing well or failing.
It turned out well, and a few months after I settled in, he mentioned that he thought hiring more licensed architects to teach was a good thing. As an administrator trying to learn the system there, I could see he had been slowly marginalized by succeeding generations of faculty; we restored his courses, but they weren’t completely successful. He retired not completely happy but fully committed to the university and its future.
I probably see a bit of myself in his last years and wonder if I will accept the little indignities of aging in the university as well as he did.
I’m a few thousand miles away today trying to update my knowledge, to have some quiet moments in beautiful gardens with the one who holds my heart, so I won’t be at the service to say goodbye, but I have him in my thoughts as he is laid to rest.
Amid cathedrals and palaces that have endured hundreds of years, Mr. Greer stands out as a maker of architects and a shaper of our profession, something harder to take pictures of but maybe more enduring.
Remember your teachers today; they helped make you what you are.
enough