Only Online: In Memoriam
James William (Bill) Whedbee, Ph.D.

Nancy B. Lyon Professor of Biblical Studies
September 24, 1938-January 22, 2004

From Margaret Adorno, Pomona College Registrar

I came to know Bill through his service to the College as chairman of the Academic Procedures Committee—a committee known by its acronym, the APC. I'm here to speak on behalf of those who worked with Bill on the APC or in similar capacities as members of this college community. To have been a part of Bill's life, even the most workaday part, and to have known his warmth, and support, and humor, and respect, has been a profound gift. For me, Bill was some kind of avatar—an avatar of the potential for our future selves, when our innate capacity for love and understanding for those closest to us can be expressed and enacted as Bill had—so magnificently generously and with such consummate kindness.

The work of the APC consists of considering written requests from students who wish to be, or need to be, relieved of the fixed rules of the College. We hear from students for whom our rules are sometimes personally insurmountable--academically or psychologically or physically….and those for whom the rules are inane annoyances. In other words it's a committee in which we might be heart-wrenched, outraged, nauseated or unmoved in the space of an hour, or even the reading of one petition. But Bill wouldn't have used words—didn't use words--like outrageous or nauseating. As Professor Steve Young told me—Steve being an APC veteran— "Bill was a lesson to us cynics. He never lost his sympathy for students, he never reveled in feeling contempt for us 'struggling human beings'—and he was able to negotiate between mercy and justice to an amazing extent. " I recall an occasion when Steve and I were alone in the APC conference room, silent for a while, lost in our own thoughts, and he turned to me with a sort of quizzical look on his face and said—“Bill's a really sweet guy, you know?” It was just a breaking of the quiet with some small talk, but clearly Steve had been marveling over his colleague's capacity for compassion.

Professor Cynthia Selassie, another APC vet, recalls Bill's ability to see the broad picture, his openness, and his careful listening; his fundamental appreciation of the stresses and strains that everyone experiences: his very, very deep sensitivity. She also recalled, as an example of this, the fact that when Zayn Kassam came to the College, Bill arranged to introduce Zayn and Cynthia to each other, on a tip from his friend Jack Quinlan that both women had been brought up in Kenya.

The staff in the Registrar's Office held Bill in the kind of highest esteem that service professionals hold for people who acknowledge them as individuals and show appreciation for their efforts, regardless of whether those efforts are in fact in their job description. Bill had this way of acknowledging staff in ways that were personally meaningful for each of them—it was quiet, like Bill was, and intimate. As an example, I have for some time brought an assistant with me to APC meetings, and Bill had a palpable way of making this person who was content to be invisible, if not actively trying to be invisible, feel included and respected. It's hard to put in words but it was noticeable and it was unique and it was Bill.

I think these last thoughts relate to a deep ore of appreciativeness in Bill's nature. I am sure that those of you who know him best must understand this in some sort of psychoanalytical way --there seemed to be nothing egotistical about him, and that somehow relates to that ore of appreciativeness that he was able to leave undiminished over the span of his life.

When we all learned that Bill died, that awful moment, I actually tried to console myself by trying to think of something—anything--about him that wasn't really wonderful. It was a desperate act because I knew we had lost something of irreplaceable value and my self-protective instinct was to diminish it. Of course I could think of nothing. So maybe I was just torturing myself. I suppose that's a strange thing to have done and even stranger to admit. It's just true, and shared on behalf of all us whose workaday lives were graced by Bill Whedbee. We thank him, we deeply admire him, and we love him, and will always miss him.