Dr. Robert (Bob) Sweeney,

Don Shula Professor of Philosophy,
retires after more than 36 years

 

Bob Sweeney, at his retirement reception Friday, greeting Associate Academic Vice President Dave LaGuardia, who was one of Sweeney's first students at Carroll in 1964.
The retirement reception for Dr. Robert Sweeney, Don Shula Professor of Philosophy and longtime chair of the department, occasioned the kind of praise befitting a man who has given JCU more than 36 years of his illustrious career.

"Bob is the only (philosophy) chair I have know," said Dr. Brenda Wirkus, who succeeded him in that role. "He has made the department what it is. He recruited us, took care of and protected us ... He is the smartest of us, certainly the best known."

Provost and Academic Vice President Fred Travis echoed that thought when he asked, "How many senior professors do you know -- who are on a first-name basis with the top people in the world in their field -- who after 32 years would teach the first-year seminar and be glad to do it? ... He epitomizes the phrase, 'gentleman and scholar' ... He's not a bad tennis player, either, and brings his gentlemanly manner to the court -- unless you play too close to the net."

Dr. James Swindal, associate professor of philosophy, said Bob Sweeney fit Aristotle's definition of a "happy man ... one whose activity accords with perfect virtue, and who is adequately furnished with external goods ..." although he noted Bob's "external goods" are mostly books.

Books are also in Bob Sweeney's future. After thanking his colleagues for "many highlights," Don Shula '51 for initiating the endowment for the Shula Chair, and the administrators he's known over the years -- "warm, supportive, reasonably common-sensical people" -- he said he intends to continue writing. "I had also thought of teaching part-time," he added, smiling at Brenda Wirkus, "although the leisure of this situation is so inspiring ... But I do intend to haunt the place."

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