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Story by Barry McNamara
Ask a college senior about his or
her plans for after commencement, and the reply might be, “I
still haven’t decided.”
Ask Monmouth College mathematics
professor Lyle Welch that question, and his reply will be the
same.
The traditional May 17 event on MC’s Wallace Hall
plaza marks the beginning of the next phase of graduates’ lives.
Welch will also be entering a new phase, as he is retiring after
38 years of teaching, the last 30 at Monmouth.
Welch
knows the location of the next phase – Joplin, Mo. – but for one
of the first times in his life, his choices will be unlimited.
Coming out of graduate school at Michigan State University,
Welch had exactly one job offer, at Ohio State
University-Newark. When his time was up there, he again pursued
a single opportunity at Otterbein College.
A colleague at
Otterbein, the late Bill Amy, came to Monmouth in 1978 and, a
year later, personally carried to Monmouth Welch’s application
to fill a math position left open by the departure of John
Arrison.
“My path has always been one thing,” Welch said
as he recapped his career in higher education. “Now I’ve got a
blank canvas. It’s wide open. That’s sort of new for me. I’m
kind of like the graduating seniors.”
Except for the fact
that Welch has a few more years under his belt than the Class of
2009. Not that he taught in a one-room schoolhouse or used an
abacus, but still, he says that a lot has changed in education
during his tenure at Monmouth.
“It’s way different,” he
said. “For one thing, we no longer use mimeograph paper. Word
processing has changed everything and made it so much easier.”
The calculator was around when Welch entered the profession,
but even it has undergone innovative changes.
“The first
calculators would only calculate the sine of 45 degrees,” he
said. “You’d have to translate if you wanted the sine of
something larger. It’s so much easier now.”
Since
calculators have become commonplace, Welch allows his students
to use them.
“The calculator’s always going to get it
right,” he said. “My colleagues might disagree with me, but
calculators can do part of the work, and you don’t have to worry
about it.”
When it comes to mathematics, “The part that
hasn’t changed,” said Welch, “is solving problems. The ones who
are intellectually curious are the ones you applaud.”
Welch has had plenty to applaud over the course of 30 years at
Monmouth. From those who wound up going into higher education
themselves, to “BMOCs,” to average students who “got it,” Welch
said, “It’s fun to watch them grow over four years.”
Welch said one of his favorite examples came from a MATH 104
class he created, in which he simply let students work on
problems.
“There was a problem involving a grid of dots
and one student – not necessarily the strongest student in the
class – came up with this idea and used some great logic to
solve it,” said Welch. “He simplified the problem by eliminating
all the parts of it which were already known. It was pretty
insightful.”
From the relative ease of calculating the
number of holes in the ceiling sections used in the Huff
Athletic Center (it was more than a million), to using data to
develop forecasts for all sorts of world issues, the
applications of mathematics know no bounds.
“The question
is, ‘What can mathematics do?’” said Welch. “The answer is,
‘Anything you want it to.’”
That’s the theme of a current
TV commercial for IBM. To do the type of math described in that
ad, Welch said, requires students to go beyond a four-year
undergraduate degree, and he has enjoyed working with math
majors who have been bright enough to take that next step. They
have included Steve Nimmo ’83, who is a professor at Morningside
College; Mike DeCaro ’06, who is currently pursuing his Ph.D.;
and Lisa Hines Berg ’83, whose interests in math and art mirror
Welch’s.
Three years ago, Welch’s interest in both
subjects led to an exhibit he displayed in the college’s Everett
Gallery. Titled “Thirty Years of Adventures in Geometry,” the
exhibit featured three-dimensional geometric designs made out of
a variety of materials.
“At first, I didn’t think I had
enough to fill up a space like that,” he said, “but once I got
the larger piece done, I began to see it was possible.”
The “larger piece” was a five-foot high pentagonal prism made of
yellow PVC pipe and black bungee cords. It’s currently on
display in the front lobby of the Haldeman-Thiessen Science
Center. Other pieces Welch constructed include four interlocking
equilateral triangles, a stellate ichosehedron and a Mobius
strip. Out of gold chain, wood and fishing line, Welch also
fashioned an attractive hanging piece that illustrates the
equation
“z = x2 - y2.”
“I
remember the day we got it all installed and I was walking out
the door,” Welch said. “I just turned around and said, “Wow.’”
Welch said he was even able to parlay his interest in art
into a trade with emeritus art professor Harlow Blum. He created
a geometric work for Blum out of rusted metal a few years back
and recently received one of the pieces from Blum’s
retrospective exhibit – also made of rust – in return.
Another student who Welch mentioned as a shining star was former
Fighting Scots quarterback Mitch Tanney ’06.
“He’s right
up there among the best students we’ve ever had,” said Welch.
That group includes another quarterback, Robb Long ’84, who
holds the distinction of writing one of only two perfect exams
in one of Welch’s classes. The other perfect score was attained
by Welch’s wife, Judy, who completed her degree at Monmouth in
1983 after starting at Otterbein. The couple will celebrate
their 40th anniversary in June.
Two of Welch’s children
have had a similar classroom experience. His older son, Doug,
teaches at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, and his younger
son, Kyle, has had his brother as a professor. The Welches’
third child, Teresa, teaches at the Emmanuel School of Religion
in Johnson City, Tenn.
Welch is leaving Monmouth with few
regrets, although he said that working in the proposed academic
complex for science and business would have been interesting.
However, Welch did get to do something similar, helping design
spaces in H-T when the mathematics department moved there in
1982 from its location on the lower level of Wallace Hall.
“Before we designed the spaces, we went around to some other
colleges like Augustana and Grinnell,” Welch said. “I’m a
building guy. I’ve been in every new building on campus as it
was being constructed.”
And there have been a lot of
those, especially in the second half of his MC career.
“This has been a beautiful campus all along,” said Welch. “I’ve
been to almost all of the ACM campuses, and Monmouth is as nice
as any of them.”
Former president Richard Giese receives
much of the credit for the recent renovations, Welch said, but
he also praised an employee who has been a “constant” in Welch’s
career, vice president for finance and business Don Gladfelter
’77.
“He’s been such a key to this place,” said Welch. “I
was on FID (Funding and Institutional Development Committee) for
a while, and Don would wisely say, ‘We can’t do that’ or ‘We can
do that, and this is how we can make it work.’”
Other
“constants” who have been alongside Welch for much of his MC
journey and have earned his deep appreciation are faculty
colleague Marta Tucker and department secretary Nancy St.
Ledger.
Welch also appreciated the opportunity to get
involved in campus by attending athletic events, plays and
concerts, and he even appeared in a production, playing the role
of Monmouth Academy co-founder James Porter in William Urban’s
“Founders’ Days.”
Through the years, Welch has dabbled
not only in theater and art, but has also been active in the
leadership of Monmouth’s First Christian Church and has restored
a 1971 MGB GT.
“The car has no heat or air conditioning,
so I only take it out when the weather is just right, between 65
and 72 degrees,” he said. “I do love car shows, and I’ve always
loved junkyards. So the houses we’re looking at in Joplin have
three-car garages.”
All those interests bring everything
back to just what it is, exactly, that Welch will do after his
own personal “commencement” on May 17.
He may not know
the answer yet, but with a loving family around him, and a
strong faith, he knows his next phase is a journey he won’t
travel alone.
“God didn’t promise to illuminate the
future,” said Welch, “he promised to light the path.”
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