Henry Hanson |
Janice and Henry W.A. Hanson III, Associate Professor of Geology
Many of us who passed through Dickinson’s geology program after 1966 owe enormous
gratitude to Prof. Henry Hanson and his wife, Janice. They were a teaching team for Dickinson
students, even while raising two sons and, in Janice’s case, working as a teacher
in the local school district. Prof. Hanson, or pH, as we called him in trying to find
the right balance between familiarity and respect, came to Dickinson in 1966. Instantly,
the energy level soared (as did the entropy level, since his organizational skills sometimes
lagged behind his enthusiasm). Suddenly in class he would announce that the best place
to learn about a particular concept was such-and-such rock outcrop in the Carlisle region,
and he would pile us into the department Suburban for an impromptu field trip. Janice
sometimes went on the longer trips, like one to the Barrier Islands of the Eastern Shore
of Virginia in 1967, and was invaluable as chaperone, confidant and a brake to complement
pH’s gas pedal.
Over my 26-year career as a geology academic [currently at Penn State University] I
have tried to understand how Henry was so effective as an educator. I’ve concluded
that until the day he died [in 1994], he maintained a deep love of the scientific way
of knowing and an enthusiasm for the processes that shape the Earth. This genuine love
of geologic puzzles and knowledge was so pure and spontaneous that it drew us into learning
until it was as effortless as breathing. There also was a selflessness in his interactions
with us. How he and Janice put up with all our teen-age angst over the Vietnam draft,
I’ll never fathom. Once in Iceland, when Henry and eight of us students got caught
in a storm and had to seek shelter in an emergency hut, it was he who slept on the floor
near the door in the sub-freezing weather. Thank you, Henry and Janice, for including
us in your family.
Rudy Slingerland ’69
Note: Janice Hanson died on Feb. 18. Her obituary will appear in the summer issue.
|
