In Memoriam
Spirit Ascendant
by Natalie Jacobson McCracken
Three days before he died, on June 12, ninety-seven-year-old School of Theology Dean Emeritus Walter Muelder reminded a gathering of retired Methodist ministers of their continuing obligations. It was their duty, he said, to keep telling clergy and laity that on matters now threatening church unity, specifically homosexuality, decisions must be based on scripture in its historical context, and also on evolving tradition, scientific reasoning, and experience. That was the lesson he taught as dean from 1945 to 1972, classroom teacher until 1993, and thereafter: the necessary link between spirituality and reason, the importance of continually evaluating judgments, and the obligation to service.
Muelder (STH’30, GRS’33, Hon.’73), son of Epke Muelder (STH’09, GRS’13) and Minnie Muelder, grew up in a parsonage where profound piety and social commitment were coherent imperatives. By high school he was meeting those responsibilities as a socialist and activist. He graduated from Knox College, earned his STH degree, was ordained in the Methodist Church, then added a BU Ph.D. in philosophy to help him reconcile his Christianity with Marxism. (In 1972, an outspoken socialist for half a century, he would write, “I often have a mild mystical experience in the midst of corporate worship.”) He spent a year on a two-church circuit in Wisconsin, six at Barea College in Appalachia, and seven at the University of Southern California, then returned to STH as dean.
When he arrived, the faculty was essentially Methodist; ten of the eleven regular members held BU divinity degrees and doctorates. When he retired, twenty-two of the forty-one faculty members had earned their highest degree elsewhere. Sixteen represented non-Methodist Protestant denominations, the Greek Orthodox Church, Hinduism, and Islam; the campus rabbi taught part-time. STH remained (and remains) a Methodist seminary, while providing a broadly ecumenical education well before that became the fashion.
Between 1953 and 1968, nearly half the U.S. degrees in theology received by blacks were earned at STH, partly because the dean practiced affirmative action before the term existed, sometimes recommending admission despite the absence of customary credentials. “But he didn’t tolerate anything but academic excellence from anybody, black or white,” says Leonard Haynes, Jr. (STH’48), a professor of history at Southern University in Baton Rouge. Paul Deats (STH’54, GRS’54), who is now Walter Muelder Professor in Christian Social Ethics Emeritus, recalls painful moments in Dean Muelder’s study: “I would stammer, ‘I know it, but I can’t say it,’ and he would respond sternly each time, ‘If you can’t say it, you don’t know it.’”
Meanwhile, Muelder’s personal study extended into economics, political science, anthropology, and other social sciences; students were expected to broaden their education according to their own needs. At his inauguration as president of the University of Charleston, Edwin H. Welch (STH’68, GRS’71) recalled his Muelder-inspired study of labor unions, the ARAMCO oil company in the Middle East, medical experimentation, racial justice, law, administration, international economic development, nuclear proliferation, Marx, and Max Weber, along with visits to Haymarket for Saturday morning shopping, the Gardner Museum, and the Brattle Book Store.
Equally important was instruction in moral and civic responsibility. Last year pastor Paul Gongloff (STH’73) described a Sunday before classes began when he was among entering students invited to the dean’s home for dinner, preceded by a game of ring toss in which the dean kept score, and cheated. At their first class, Muelder expressed his disappointment in their behavior that day, allowed them to squirm, confused, and then smiled slightly. “I was greatly disappointed because . . . I cheated you blind at that game we played, and you didn’t speak the truth or hold me accountable. Now, let’s see what we can learn together about social ethics and the ways of God’s justice.”
“He pointed us to the basic spiritual dimensions of any social behavior,” says Evans Crawford (STH’46, GRS’57), dean of the Howard University chapel for thirty-five years. “The dean did more for the civil rights movement than anyone knows,” says Douglas Moore (STH’53,’59), attributing his business success as well as his community service to Muelder’s influence. “His students have been leaders in colleges and churches all over the South.”
Among them, Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS’55, Hon.’59) cited Muelder in his intellectual and philosophical development and called Personalism his “basic philosophical position.”
Personalism, the philosophy that teaches that the person is the fundamental principle explaining all reality, including the existence of a supreme person, was part of Muelder’s upbringing: his father had studied with its founder, BU Professor Borden Parker Bowne. Having studied with Bowne’s student Edgar Brightman (STH’10, GRS’12), who further developed Personalism, Muelder extended its communitarian aspects: the individual’s social role.
Visiting professorships, seven books, and several hundred articles built his reputation as socialist and leader. In a 1950 Reader’s Digest article, “Methodism’s Pink Fringe,” Stanley High (STH’23) accused STH and its dean of moving the church toward Communism. Muelder sent a closely reasoned, coolly angry response rejected by Reader’s Digest and published in Zion’s Herald (“Years of experience have taught [High] how to cut skillful figures of insinuation and distortion of truth on the ice of misrepresentation”). He attended the STH Valentine Ball that year in a suit trimmed in pink fringe.
He advanced ecumenicism in the Methodist Church, the Boston Theological Institute, and the World Council of Churches (where, he said, he was also “gadfly to get the woman question on all . . . agendas. The more recent feminism movement is not always aware of its predecessors.”).
Ecumenicism also characterized his personal beliefs, as did the continuing religious inquiry he urged to the retired Methodist ministers on June 9. In an interview recorded for the STH archives eight days before, he recalled having conducted services for a Hindu leader who was spending six weeks in India. “I had no trouble doing that,” Muelder said. In 1993, he had told the entering STH class, “I belong to Jesus.” Now eleven years later, he quoted that and added, “You have to belong somewhere.”
Contributions in Muelder’s memory may be sent to the Theology Foundation, Boston University School of Theology, Room 108, 745 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215.
The Quintessential Professor
Murray Yaeger, a professor emeritus of communication, died June 13. He was seventy-five. His more than thirty years of teaching at the College of Communication mirrored the rise of the television industry, beginning with his dissertation on Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now, which he researched by observing Murrow’s story conferences and editing sessions. It’s estimated that he taught thousands of COM students over the years. His former student Jay Roewe (COM’79), now senior vice president of production for HBO Films, knew him well.
by Jay Roewe
The last time I spoke to Murray Yaeger was on a Tuesday, June 8 of this year, five days before he died. Cancer had spread throughout his body, but he was intent on explaining what a wonderful weekend he’d had with some BU friends and a streetful of neighbors at his home in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Then, ever blunt, Murray told me that the doctor had assured him he wouldn’t die in pain. I didn’t know what to say. If one person had served as a springboard for thousands into the business of art, communications, and entertainment — myself included — it was Murray Yaeger.
“Murray,” I said, “if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here.” Here, for me, is HBO. I thoroughly enjoy my job and have a wonderful wife and two great sons. I was trying to tell him that I realized many of my most important life decisions were due to the indelible imprint he had made on my life.
He deflected the compliment, a custom of Murray’s. Despite his strong ego and strong opinions, when you complimented him, he’d blush from embarrassment, almost like a little boy. But I told him anyway, and he heard me.
I first sensed he was ill last fall, when he reluctantly turned down seats for the premiere screening of HBO’s miniseries Angels in America, a favorite play of his and a current project of mine.
Denise Graveline (COM’81), Mark Feffer (COM’82), Adam Mosston (COM’82), and I had a strong connection with Murray, having been his students and his production assistants in the late seventies and early eighties. For us, he became teacher, boss, mentor, and one of the most influential people in our lives. And so we conspired to get one more visit in.
That June weekend culminated in a lobster feast at the home of neighbor Lora McGrath. Despite obvious pain, he stayed for a long time, animated and full of life. The stories and his students were what energized him, his “best medicine,” the neighbors said.
Growing up, I had an image of what a great university professor would be like: scholarly, worldly, intelligent, witty, energetic, dramatic, loved and often feared at the same time. Murray was that quintessential professor. And whether you knew him up close and personal or from a distance, he made a lasting impression and a major impact on the estimated 10,000 BU students he taught between 1956 and 1988.
In 1979, Boston University honored him with a Metcalf Award, the first given to a professor at the School of Public Communication. At the College of Communication’s fiftieth anniversary celebration in 1997, Murray Yaeger was honored as the most influential professor in the history of the school.
His memorial service a few weeks after his death was a much smaller event. Once more, we gathered at Lora’s home, this time invited to share our memories with his friends and neighbors. His oil paintings — many of which had graced his annual Christmas cards — hung on every wall, filling the house with his glorious spirit.
I’m convinced that spirit lives on in the heartbeats of former students throughout the communications industry, from small public relations, advertising, and production companies to television networks, film studios, and publishing companies. Whether they experienced him in his famous BF101 freshman class or were lucky enough to take his other classes, I know his students will not forget him.
Some evidence of that lasting legacy is at www.bu.edu/alumni/yaeger, a special Web site we’ve created with Dean John Schulz, Professor Bill Lord, Stephanie Trodello, and Robyn Neeley to let students and colleagues share their memories in an evolving tribute. It’s an emotional site: someone recalls kindness to his parents at graduation, another credits him with preventing a freshman from dropping out, still others are proud that he tuned in to their shows, or saw their films, or just cheered them on. It’s an amazing compilation of one man’s accomplishments, written in the voices and the lives and the work of the people he loved best.
We’ve also started a Murray Yaeger scholarship to allow all of his former students to support future students the same way Murray helped us — with inspiration and confidence. I can’t think of a better tribute, or a finer person to honor.
