Swarthmore College - Halcyon Yearbook (Swarthmore, PA)

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Clair Wilcox has been a member of the Swarthmore faculty since 1927, and for many years the Joseph Wharton Professor of Political Economy and Chairman of the Department of Economics. It would be hard to overstate the importance and pervasiveness of his contribution to the College His world, wider than Swarthmore alone, has added to our outreach and scope. He has somehow managed to be scholar, teacher, and shaper of public affairs all at the same time. An advisor to our state and federal governments, to foreign governments, and to international conferences of governments, he sees his handiwork in policies that have helped meet and solve economic problems in our own country and all over the world. He is author of five books, including a definitive and widely used text on Public Policies Toward Business, and over a hundred articles. And for many of us at Swarthmore, both in and out of the classroom, his lucid ability to growl out the plain truth in a way that informs and delights is something of an archetype of how communicating communication at its best can be. His wit communicates too, shattering for all of us any temptation to gray overseriousness, and putting life back into proportion. Swarthmore knows Professor Wilcox, too, for long and significant interest in the studio arts. His insight helped us to see the importance of these activities for campus life, and his generosity provided opportunities that constantly make life at Swarthmore, for students and faculty alike, livelier and richer. So, however inadequately, one hopes in this and in other ways to say to Clair Wilcox for Swarthmore. Many thanks, indeed. Swarthmore has grown through your scope, learned through your teaching, and become more human through your humanity. — Courtney Smith