Briggs to speak on C&C Day
by Elijah LaChance '10Class and Charter Day at Hamilton is more than a chance to rest and relax before the start of Reading Period and Finals Week; it is a testament to the richness of great traditions at Hamilton College. Class Day and Charter Day were separate celebrations until Robert McEwen combined them during his tenure as College President. Class Day was the last day of classes, and Charter Day, which recognized student and faculty achievements during the closing academic year, was celebrated on May 26.
Today, Class and Charter Day is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the past year by the awarding of prizes and awards to members of the staff, faculty, and student body at Hamilton. In addition, it is a chance to learn more about Hamilton, as the speaker at the Class and Charter Day awards ceremony is traditionally a person who has a unique and educated view of the College's history.
This year, Class and Charter Day will be celebrated on May 9 at 12:15 p.m. in the Chapel. The speaker will be Hamilton B. Tompkins Professor of English Literature Emeritus Austin Briggs who taught at Hamilton for over fifty years. Briggs joined the Hamilton College faculty in 1957. "It was going to be a temporary job," he said, remembering his initial time at Hamilton. Briggs, who received his bachelor's degree from Harvard and his PhD. from Columbia, recalled that he felt comfortable with Hamilton's learning environment almost immediately. "I just loved the small classes," he said. When colleagues from Columbia saw his affinity for the liberal arts college life, they encouraged him to stay. He concluded his story by simply saying, "… and here I am."
"Here I am" seems to have been a motto for Briggs's years as a Hamilton professor. Past students say he was always available for discussion after class or just about any time. Briggs said, "It was always very important for me to connect with students." Briggs's presence has had significant impact on his former pupils and scholarly colleagues. "He is always insightful," observed Thrassos Calligas '72, a Boston psychiatrist and former Briggs student. "When you had a discussion with him, you'd leave with a number of thoughts that you hadn't had before." Catherine Kodat, associate professor and chair of English called Briggs "an inspiration as a teacher and a scholar" as well as lauding his "wit, warmth and sheer love of life."
Briggs has had a lifelong love of the work of James Joyce, who is one of the most influential figures of English literature and the author of Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Briggs was identified by the James Joyce Literary Supplement a few years ago as one of the three funniest Joyceans. John Bishop of the University of California, Berkeley, a fellow Joycean, said he regards Briggs as "warm, intellectually fertile and constantly surprising." He called Briggs "Upstate New York's successor to Edmund Wilson," and described him as "not just a teacher or lecturer, but a kind of cultural spokesman."
Although Briggs retired from full-time teaching at Hamilton in 2000, he continued to teach a yearly seminar on Joyce. This year marked the last year of the Briggs's Joyce seminar. Briggs's extensive teaching career at Hamilton has come to an end, but not his influence on the Hill, as he leaves many longtime colleagues and students who will forever hold him in high regard.
For his speech on Class and Charter Day, Briggs is expected to reflect on the changes and similarities he has seen over his fifty-plus years at Hamilton. Last year's speaker, Susan Skerrrit, K '77, shared a personal account of how Kirkland College has influenced the College today. Other past Class and Charter Day speakers have included Marjorie R. McEwen, and Richard Couper '44, former President of Hamilton College. As Hamilton pauses to recognize the achievements of its current members, it is traditional to reflect on the past that has brought Hamilton College to this point in its history.