University of Texas School of Law - Peregrinus Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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PROFESSOR PIERRE R. LOISEAl e 1968 Peregrinus Dedicatee Each year the Society of the Peregrinus is faced with the almost hopeless task of selecting from the staff or faculty of the Law School one individual to receive the yearbook’s dedication. Yet in this year’s selection process there was virtual unanimity from the start on the ultimate choice. Sitting in the audience at this moment is a man who is easily one of the finest teachers in the country. To his overall mastery of the subjects he teaches, he brings a willingness to innovation, a warm manner calculated to relax the petrified student, and a socratic dialogue designed to bring the lackidasical student to upright attention. His exams demand such rigor of the mind that he has been called the Smiling Assassin”; it is said that his objective exams are given once a week in hell. Yet no student has ever left one of his courses without a thorough grasp of the essence and the technicalities of the subject. Indeed, it is said that his final exam burns them indelibly on the mind. If the true purpose of teaching is not only to impart knowledge but also to lend a hand to the student in the larger study of life, then this man may be said to never leave the classroom. Thousands of students have paraded their troubles through both his office and home, finding, as the cliche would have it, that his door is always open. His willingness to help with problems both academic and personal has increased the line of visitors to his door. The incredible list of regular services he performs to aid the legal profession at large is matched only by the list of services he has rendered to the school in what is laughably called his spare time. Listing these accomplishments would take the better part of the morning and would give away his name instantly to those of you who have not yet guessed it, thereby violating one of the principle rules of the dedicatee: never show anyone the ball until the proper moment. There is a legend that after an entire year of hiding the elusive legal principles from his rule-hungry contracts students, the dedicatee concluded his last class by tugging twice at his ear lobe and saying: I have been accused all year of hiding the ball from you. Ladies and gentlemen... THERE IS NO BALL.” And there wasn’t, until one year his contracts class presented him with a brightly colored beach ball, covered with their signatures, which now sits in a place of honor in his office. In the same spirit, the Society of the Peregrinus takes great honor in dedicating the 1967-68 Peregrinus to a man the entire student body respects... Professor Pierre Loisseaux.