 Tony's just shouting over me as he should. This is your show. This is what happens when you let people drink in between events, it gets raucous. So welcome to the formal ceremony in which we will dedicate the professor Anthony J. Santoro classroom. I did some welcomes earlier, but I want to welcome, give a special welcome to Anita Barr, who is here. Anita is the wife of our first associate dean, Gary Barr and a dear friend of Tony Ann Pauline. She's been a great supporter of the law school and of a memorial scholarship that she established here in Gary's name, so Anita, it's great to see you. So I guess we all knew this day was coming at some point, but I have to say it sort of snuck up on me. It doesn't seem like 25 years ago that I first met Tony for an interview in Washington where he used his superpowers to see in me what approximately 180 other law schools could not. From there, things sort of went downhill for a little while. Between that interview and arriving here for our first faculty meeting, I went to a retreat that was organized and hosted by Bruce Cogan and while there, I almost killed Bruce and Jamie's dog. And for those of you who know them, you know that was a very bad thing. The only bigger sin I think I could commit would have been to scratch one of Bruce's cars or something like that, but I was not off to a great start. And then when I arrived to go to my first real faculty meeting where I would have the right to vote and carry on and object and be obstreperous as faculty occasionally do, Tony quit. And which to me, and maybe I was out of the loop, was both unexpected and somewhat unsettling. But he quit to become president of the university which was a good thing. And he was succeeded as dean, as you might imagine, he had someone in the wings waiting to be approved by the faculty who helped finish the job of getting accreditation for the law school in the shortest possible time. During his presidential years, we had less contact, but one interaction stands out. As many of you know, the opening of the law school corresponded with the resignation in October of 1993, not of Tony, but this time of the Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court who was facing impeachment proceedings and criminal charges. And this was unfortunate, especially because his predecessor had also been forced to resign under a cloud just a few years before. So long story short, I had been asked by Common Cause Rhode Island to participate in a judicial reform movement and was about to write an op-ed that was critical of the status quo and the defenders of the status quo. And I was years from tenure and it dawned on me to ask Tony to meet with me so I could get his advice about whether I should take this on. He quickly agreed to see me, he listened to me, he did not hesitate, and he quickly said that's one of the reasons the law school is here by all means you have my support to what you think is best. And judicial selection became one of my long-lasting academic passions, but more importantly, Tony showed me that day what it meant to stand up for academic freedom, which is not an easy thing to do when an institution is in its infancy, when it's trying to establish roots in unfamiliar terrain and where it's trying to win over not an insubstantial number of skeptics. So I could go on and on. Tony created the institution that has become my professional home and Rhode Island has become my personal home. I was not comfortable saying this for a long time, but I am now out loud. My children are Rhode Islanders. So I will always have a personal affection for Tony and for his work, but I wanna say just a couple more things about Tony's character, about the things about Tony that bring us all here tonight. Before I became dean, I was for a time the associate dean for academic affairs, the chief cat herder. And Tony always said the same thing to me, and I think my predecessors and successors have had this experience. Whenever I asked him about his teaching schedule, he said, I'll teach whatever you need. I'll teach it whenever you need it. Just tell me what's best for you. And I'm not kidding. He always said that. And I can say with complete confidence that I never heard even a similar conversation, had a similar conversation with another one of my colleagues. So we know that Tony is generous, and we know that he is humble. Second, despite my many faults and despite the fact that I've been nominally in charge of his law school for over three years, he has never once done anything but support me. And I know he's there if I need him, but he has never inserted himself. He is gracious and he is graceful. And finally, not for nothing, look at where his law school is today. We have successful alumni from across the country, people who came here as students with a dream who are now pursuing it. Just this week I was in the chambers of Judge Roger E. Thompson in the First Circuit and I was visiting three of our alumni who are clerking for Judge Thompson. And each one of them had previously clerked for a member of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. We have become Rhode Island's law school, which creates unparalleled opportunities for our students. We take this for granted here now, but also this week the Esther Clark Moot Court competition was held in the chamber of the Rhode Island Supreme Court and our students argued before the court. The following evening in Providence we had a mentoring reception that was sponsored by two of our student groups, the Multicultural Law Students Association and the Alliance, which is our LGBTQ student organization. And there were almost 70 students, alumni, judges, non-RWU lawyers there to connect. This is a remarkable community that Tony has created. He had the vision, he had the talent and he had the energy to make this happen. So put simply, I think nobody has done more for this law school than Tony Santoro. Nobody, full stop, as they say. And dedicating that classroom in his honor, the classroom where he used to teach tax to a full house at 8.30 in the morning when he was president, seems like the least that we can do. So Tony, thank you for everything. And it's now my pleasure to welcome to the podium my longtime colleague, professor, dean, twice interim dean and live to tell the tale, Bruce Covell. So looking around the room, I see Tony's family and I see friends and I see students and colleagues. And other than his family and Anita, I think I probably know Tony the longest of anybody in the room other than family and Anita. I met Tony 35 years ago, probably this week or close to it when he came to interview for the deanship at what was then the Delaware Law School of Widener University now Widener University School of Law Delaware where I was already a new faculty member and so that was 35 years ago. And it was a wise decision that my colleagues and I made at Widener to hire Tony as our dean because he proceeded for the next 10 years to lead that school in its upward trajectory. And it was 25 years ago, probably again this week when Tony who was already in Rhode Island doing the preparatory work for the starting of this law school called me up and said, you ought to come up here and take a look at what we're trying to do up here. I think this might be a good fit for you. I came up and I'm very glad that Tony made that call and asked me to come up here because it gave me an opportunity to continue working with a colleague who I love and respect and admire. Tony has had a marvelous career in law teaching, marvelous, almost 50 years of law teaching. He has taught I think at, I was gonna say, every law school in the country but that's not true. Then I should say he started as dean at every law school in the country but Tony has taught at probably six I think law schools and has been involved in founding at least four law schools in addition to having been the consultant at many other, probably dozens of law schools and colleges and universities have sought his guidance as they prepare to either start a law school or start new programs. But one of my best recollections of Tony is because his first year as dean at Widener was 1983 and he taught tax which I taught because like Tony I have an LLM in tax from Georgetown and I was teaching tax back in the day before I got my mind straight and stopped teaching tax and Tony was teaching I think it was business tax and business planning, one or the others in the fall of 1983 and I was teaching fed tax and probably estate and gift tax or estate planning something like that and I asked Tony if I could come in and watch him teach. I was in my second year of full time teaching although I had taught as an adjunct for a little while before that and Tony was then a good dozen or more years into teaching maybe 15 years into law teaching and watching Tony teach that class in a pretty big and it was very highly tiered classroom that we had at Widener, the big one, was a pleasure just watching somebody who was clearly a gifted law teacher and at his core, at least what I've known over the last 35 years, Tony is a great law teacher. He's done a lot of other things. He's been involved with a lot of other organizations, a lot of community work. He has chaired the Rhode Island Student Loan Authority for a long, had done that for a long time. He created the MCLE system for Rhode Island out of whole cloth and I've been serving on the commission ever since he put me on the commission and that's a long time ago, 27, 24 years ago. And he wisely married the beautiful Pauline plant and has four beautiful children who I remember growing up as little kids, Lynn and AJ and Lauren and Annie. I remember following them as they progressed along. But at his core, he's a great law teacher who chose to teach tax and business law, not an easy choice. None of what we teach is easy to teach but that's clearly kind of like, if teaching law is like monopoly, then teaching tax law is like risk. It's like a much more complicated game set and that was a tough choice. Tony's students you can see from today's panel discussion adore him and for good reason. He is still, after almost five decades, excited when he walks into class. He is still trying to figure out the next best way to get students to be just as excited about reorganizations and mergers and distributable net income and all of that. And that is absolutely infectious. So he has inspired generations of people who have gone on to contribute in many, many ways to their communities and to their clients. Among his colleagues, he has been the best friend we could have for the law school while he was the president of this law school and he has been a terrific friend to me over all of these years. But it is a teacher. He is an exemplary law teacher who embodies a teaching philosophy that I've done a little bit of reading about over the years from a guy named Parker Palmer who has a book out, the title of which is You Teach Who You Are, Not What You Know. And Tony has always done that. He has always demonstrated to his students his core value of wanting them to be as excited about the work and as excited about becoming the best lawyer they can be. So I joined Michael and I'm sure all of the rest of us in saying thank you to Tony for what he has done for this law school on the dedication of the professor Anthony J. Santoro classroom. And I think it's appropriate that we recognize this man of substance who has definitely affected in the most positive way all of the rest of us. So I now will introduce my colleague, Louise Tites. I am honored to share this occasion. Notice that I carefully said I am honored. I am not happy. I, like many of my colleagues including Emily Sack, really are not happy that you're leaving Tony and we are hoping that you will drive Pauline crazy and she will banish you back to the law school. So there's still that hope. I want to talk about Tony Santoro, my boss, my colleague, my mentor, and my friend. I've now known Tony only for a quarter of a century but that sounds like a long time. I met Tony in July of 1992 right after he had become dean of Rhode Island's first law school. I am from Rhode Island. I'm from Newport and I was home from Illinois for a family event and I arranged to meet Tony. Tony, who I learned about from colleagues elsewhere, either was loved or hated. There was no middle ground. Tony, whom I dean at Illinois referred to as the Johnny Appleseed of law schools. Tony and I talked about Roger Williams and his vision and I was really excited to be part of Rhode Island's first law school since I remembered as a child when even Brown had talked about one but they never did it. We also commiserated about what it was like or in my case would be like to move back home as grown adults and live with one's mother. His was a typical Italian mother. Mine was a typical Jewish mother and I can assure you there is a great overlap of traits, especially that one called guilt. In the same conversation, by the way, he asked me, so how are you going to handle it when all these people that call you and want you to use pull Rhode Islanders to get into the law school and these are all going to be friends of my first cousin at the time who was a big Rhode Island Politico. In fact, he helped indict the first, or rather impeach the first judge, Bella Lacqua. And I said, well, I don't think I know people and he said, you'll never be on the admissions committee. That will solve it. And I have to say in almost 25 years that is the only committee I have never served on. So my mother, by the way, adored Tony. He walked on water because he could do no wrong because he was the person who got me to come back to Rhode Island and rightfully so. So I signed up and my former dean at Illinois warned me and said, you know, this is Johnny Appleseed. Tony might come and, you know, plant a few seeds and move on in five years and I thought, nah, Tony is coming home to Fall River. Pauline is coming home to Tiverton and I'm coming home to Newport. So I figured that he wouldn't just pack up and leave. And of course, my former dean wasn't totally off base because as Michael told you, at our first faculty meeting he said, I'm leaving, the smoke has risen from the chimney, the white smoke, and I'm about to be, and I being a nice Jewish girl didn't know the reference. Somebody had to explain it to me that this was the Pope. Then he was going to go across campus and he said that we would get an opportunity to choose the dean the next time but he was bringing in someone to get the job done temporarily and five years later we did get to choose our dean. Tony, my colleague, so Tony taught the basic tax course as you heard every year to our students even while he was president and chancellor. He'd teach early and he would leave early and I would stalk his parking space. And yes, parking was a problem even then after year two and I'd wait while he had his cigarette and occasionally he'd have two but I was totally thrilled when he came back after being president and chancellor and I was finally able to have him as my colleague which I had expected on day one until we got that surprise. I'm not going to say anything about his teaching because everybody else has said it and the fact that so many of his former students come back and are here and that in itself I think is a testament to his teaching and his ability to inspire passion for learning in all things tax. I mean that is not something that I could ever get passionate about. As a colleague you always knew where Tony stood if he didn't agree he would tell you and he would tell you to his face, to your face rather rather than talking about it to somebody else. I respected his and do respect his honesty and candidness traits that are increasingly in short supply. And as the years have gone on Tony and I have commiserated about changes in the legal education field in the new generation in technology and Jim Galib knows this. Tony and I as fellow Luddites are about as flustered by technology as we can be and once you leave I'm going to be the only one. So this is not good at least now they say oh yes Tony was down yesterday with this problem. Tony my mentor. Tony has been my mentor and he's been a mentor to most of my colleagues through the years. A mentor with whom you can share confidences and ask advice and you know that it will never go outside of his office. In fact he was the person I confided in and asked for advice when I was offered the appointment in the Hague. Tony also can be brutally honest. He will say I think you're crazy to do this. He said that to me earlier this week but he will also offer support and advice once you've managed to create a mess because he didn't listen to his advice the first time and he never says I told you so. And finally I guess the best of all Tony and Pauline are my friends. We've shared happy times and we've shared losses of colleagues like Gary and Esther but we are all a family. In fact I think that really is what Tony has created a Roger Williams family and it is impressive how Tony when he was president knew everyone. You heard one of his former students say that when she was an undergraduate he knew her name but he knew everyone at Roger Williams. He knew everybody who worked here who their kids were how their families were doing and he'd always asked that and so sort of the one story that to me captures who Tony is. One day I stopped by the dean's office to talk to Bruce it was in one of his interim periods and the office was being painted and Tony was asking the worker who was painting it so how's the family? And this seemed like a normal question he might ask any of the Roger Williams employees his Roger Williams family. So I was totally surprised when Tony turned to me and said oh you know AJ my son, right? Tony treated those he worked with and those who worked for him with the respect and care that he showed his own son and his family. He started with a small family here at Roger Williams and we've grown over the 25 years. The campus that you could cover in a 10 minute stroll in 1993 has become a university that now takes at least 30 minutes to cross or more. I probably walk much slower than I did in 93 too but I guess the apple seeds that you put down have grown strong roots that many have built on so we will miss you Tony. And now Tucker Wright from across the campus? Again it's an honor to be asked to speak here today and I've known Tony for 25 years let me tell you how it came about and I was proud and privileged to have a little something to do with setting up the law school. Number years ago I was having coffee with President Sikharo from the university and he was talking about how he created a medical school where he was before and I said to him you know we don't have a law school in Rhode Island and his eyes opened up. And at the time we had a paralegal program a criminal justice program under graduate so he said what do you do? I said well what you have to do is form a feasibility study with the American Bar Association and I said let me give you an idea called Justice Weisberger and thankfully Justice Weisberger agreed to share the committee. I was on the feasibility committee it met for close to two years right at the beginning Tony was recommended to be the consultant on the committee and we worked diligently we met many times we had about a 12 or 13 member committee and he put together an excellent report based on the findings that we came up with and we had to meet with the Supreme Court of Rhode Island to give the presentation and it was at that meeting that Ralph Papito was there. Now I know poor Ralph had his problems but believe me he was a driving force of this law school and I said to him where is the money going to come from? He said don't worry about the money you people get this approved by the Supreme Court and we'll go and he got together with his financial consultant Mr. Gabelli down in New York and somehow or other came up with the money and built this building within budget on time right and then you know they had decided to go ahead with the law school so now they were seeking a dean and I asked President Sarkoort I said did Tony Santel apply? and he said no so I called him I don't know if you remember this and I had done some research and realized they were from around here and I said Tony it's time you came home and of course Humble Pie said well I shouldn't really apply because I was a consultant I said that doesn't matter so he applied and that was history and you know the especially Justice Weisberg he did a great job in helping put the whole situation together the advisory committee was a little interesting too we had a couple of developers on the committee trying to build a law school up in a mill up in Providence so we had to bring the ABA down you should build it on campus which fortunately happened so the as far as the because Tony agreed to be here from law school and we've had enough comments about his teaching abilities and experience where the panel was here today the quality of the students that went through your classroom I must say that I finally got the best compliment best compliment in my life one day we're having lunch with one of his one of the admissions lady and he introduced to me he said this is Tucker Wright he's the father of the law school I you are the father of the law school okay and so that's the end of my remarks I'd like to introduce President Farage from the university well I have to confess that until today I've actually never met Anthony this is my first time in meeting my predecessor so that's not true but the point is we've had people talking about Tony Santoro for 25 years or 35 years I've only known him since the time that I arrived but I want to talk about him in a different context in his role as the president of this university you heard the story that back in 92 he was offered the job of dean and it took him only just a few months apparently to impress the powers that be that he was being wasted as a dean the president of the university and he did that for the between 93 and 2000 and then he was actually the chancellor of the university for a year he may have been the only chancellor I don't think that title has been used again so he's the first and the retiring chancellor of the university but what was really quite remarkable in addition to the fact that he founded the law school and all the work that was involved in making that happen he had quite a remarkable career as a president of this university and one of the things that presidents when they come to universities always wanted to scout out first is how many retired presidents are still hanging around the neighborhood my last job I had two and that was it took a little extra work to watch where they were at any given moment but on this university just one and the issue there is is the president still acting like he's pretty much still the president and that makes life a little difficult that is not who Tony Santoro is and I think you could assume that to be true if you know him at all he's been nothing but gracious and helpful a few times that I've wanted to speak with him about some issues that were historic in nature that I just need to get a little bit of understanding of he was right there offered any hint of criticism or anything that would sound like well I would have done it differently that's just not in his nature and I can't tell you how much I appreciated that Tony because it's a tough enough job coming in as a new president where you're inheriting a culture and a whole bunch of folks who are pretty comfortable with each other but stepping aside as you did was just made my life a whole lot easier Tony himself as the president as I look at what his accomplishments were and I should tell you this story I was at URI for four years between the years 1979 and 83 and my brother-in-law at the time actually graduated from Roger Williams and I remembered as being a very small place which was true in 1983 so coming back and seeing it in 2011 I was taken back by how much it had grown and some of you know I'm a lawyer myself or at least I went to law school and passed the bar I wouldn't really call myself a lawyer and I would always assume that I would be at a school that had a law school and I never was until I came back to Roger Williams and because of Tony Centaro I finally got to be at a place that has a law school of course by now I'd forgotten everything I ever knew about law but at least symbolically it was important but the decision to start a law school I think changed the trajectory of this institution but it wasn't enough for Tony just to do that and hope for the best think of the things that he did while he was here the Feinstein school of arts and sciences college of arts and sciences came into being the Gebelli school was renamed for Mr. Gebelli he started the honors program and we started bringing in international students there was a tremendous growth of the undergraduate population he began the first graduate program he acquired the metro center in downtown Providence which was an interesting way of kind of returning to our roots because that's where the school began back in 1956 and that metro center we've since transformed into not the same building but the whole idea of being at Providence campus manifest with our one empire Plaza building which is an even larger version of how we're interfacing with the population of urban Rhode Island my point is that presidents leave behind tangible legacies and ideally what happens is they're built in such a way that they become a foundation for the next president so that we're not tearing things down in order to build we're building on top of what was there and I'll say that the work that Tony Santoro did as president created an enormously strong foundation for this university so while I've had the pleasure of adding to the work that he did it certainly wasn't in substitution for and I think what happens as a consequence universities just get stronger and better so I want to thank you for having started that work Tony I think you as much as anybody built the university not just the law school but built the university that we are here celebrating today lots of help of course but the leadership came from you and the vision came from you and the idea that this place had something singular to offer I think is very much again a continuing part of your legacy I'm going to tell a little story about Tony he would probably tell it himself but you'll thank me for telling because I'll be shorter than he will and so I know him that well it's always a pleasure hearing Tony he's a wonderful Rockland tour but the story is that when he was down at Weidner Law School a telephone call came in and the secretary came to him and said Tony your ship has come in Malcolm Forbes is on the phone Tony said Malcolm Forbes this is remarkable for two reasons one is I didn't even know that he knew that I existed and the second is he's dead so there was that issue well it turns out as luck would have it there was another Malcolm Forbes he just happened to be the provost at Roger Williams University offering Tony a job and this was an enormous let down that it wasn't the other Malcolm Forbes but as a consolation prize he agreed to take the job and so Tony it may be that your ship didn't come in when Malcolm Forbes called but our ship did when you said thanks I'll take the job and come up to Roger Williams thank you so much for all the work that you're done and now a graduate from the first law school class and currently a member of our law school board of directors Steve McGuire I'm going to channel Mr. Coughlin from the first group and say I'm a little freaked out right now I've been around the law school for a long time and holy smokes the panel that was here today the list of speakers that just went and kind of feel like I snuck in thank you to for this opportunity I was a little heartened when I sat next to President Faris and he also had notes but show off that he left them on the desk so so I have my notes and I remember giving my mother grief when I was 22 years old and I had just come home from an epic summer in California living with some cousins and an aunt and uncle that I really didn't know I told my mother how can you let 20 years go by and you only saw your sister a couple of times I only met these guys a few times how do you do that you know and looked at you like your mother looks at you and says it goes by fast and you don't even know what's happening you'll see so here we are 24 years in two months after a hot blue sky day in August that seems like yesterday I was coming down Metacom Avenue listening to President Santoro talking to Arlene Violet on the radio about this new law school how exciting it was that they were finally coming students finally coming you know and it was about two weeks after that I brought a visual aid but I left it on the desk you can see it later we had a picnic in a softball game and it's on the cover of the Rhode Island what was it the journals Rhode Islander magazine if you see in the picture there's no grass in front of the school yet even we were in the building but there was still no grass no trees or anything and I was there with my mother my father and my wife who was my girlfriend at the time and we were walking up to the building and out comes President Santoro and I guess he was Dean Santoro still at that point it was probably two days before he quit so but he came out and he walked down the the cement paths were finally cement they weren't planks anymore and he walked down the cement path and he gave one of his very dramatic hey Steve how you doing and he chatted with us for a minute I introduced my parents and then down the hill he went to the next group to say hello and my wife Laura says Dean? maybe maybe it was Professor Worf who was just with us who went in the same door that he came out I don't know but the point is he made you feel special made you feel welcome I was one of the non-traditional students in that first class there were a bunch of us I turned 30 during my first set of exams and there were differences certainly between the non-traditional students and the traditional students that were there and young students old students and I remember one lady a couple of weeks into the classes she was in her late 50s and she was amazed, she loved the place she said just think two weeks ago the only thing I had to worry about was am I going to play bridge or golf but by the time the second year I rolled around young and old traditional non-traditional we could agree on one core principle and that was 8 o'clock in the morning is a god-awful time to try to learn tax law but when you're the president and you still fashion yourself a professor and you want to teach tax that's when you do it tax was never going to be my thing whether it was 8 in the morning or 8 at night it was never going to be my thing and in fact as great as he is really the only thing I ever learned from President Santoro is that you have to keep a dirty office he said it during one of his introductions here you have to have a dirty office a place where you can actually do your work and you don't have to clean up after yourself and I heard that you might be able to sneak a cigarette in there once in a while I enjoyed his class even though it was tax the way I enjoyed property even though it was property because of the teacher he was a great person a great storyteller a great success obviously and between him and Dean Huber they could tell stories that made even tax law even property bearable so mostly both of them were very good at and they're still good at name dropping and the names they most often drop are the folks that were sitting at the table today he always talked about his students I've been hanging around the law school a long time maybe because I'm afraid they won't let me back in if I stop coming now here I think it's that that inspires people like Brian Ali who was the instigator for this lecture series and the folks that were here today there is an actual reverence sort of for Professor Santoro everyone knows the history of the place we've heard some of it if you were here in the beginning you've heard Mr. Papito tell you the history of it several times you know and maybe four or five times I've heard the history and even Jack Palin doing push-ups couldn't shorten the history sometimes but it's a good history and it's a great history and you know it's a tremendous credit to both President Santoro and Mr. Papito that the school is even here because it was just a crazy idea for a long time if you live in Rhode Island you know it was just a crazy idea for a long time you heard that it was going to happen it wasn't going to happen PC was going to do it Brown was going to do it and then we did it so and if you've been around you know his history and this is the fourth one that he's been involved in and obviously I think he did a good job at those other places but he saved his best work you know for us um so today's you know time for recognition finally for I've been here a long time like the proverbial Bad Penny shoe which means I've eaten a lot of fancy snacks and even a lobster once with President Santoro and many of the other great people here Dean Logan Dean Logan, Dean Kogan Professor Tites and Mike Yanoski and if you see the picture later I'm the only one who still looks the same so so so anyway it was interesting to hear all of the coming home parts of this story and because it's Rhode Island you know at all of these different events and the best two events that I've gotten to attend are the last two commencements where Dean Kogan and President Santoro finally got a diploma from here and I got to meet both of their families and because it's Rhode Island I worked with somebody who works with his daughter and it's just been so great to see them both have a chance to pat each other on the back for all the hard work that they did and the great work that they did and I think it's a tribute to their friendship the depth of their commitment to each other that I caught Mrs. Santoro weeping on the side of the tent as her husband was telling Bruce Kogan stories last year so as my mom said it goes by fast and you don't even know it so I interviewed President Santoro for an article I wrote for the alumni magazine in honor of the 10th anniversary of the school which apparently was 14 years ago and here's what we said back then people who know him thought he was crazy when they learned that the law school's founding dean and president Anthony J. Santoro was planning to retire and take on the comparatively sedentary life of a tax law professor everybody said I would hate it he said that I wouldn't have enough to do but not only do I have plenty to do, I don't have any time to do it if I may be so bold I'm going to try to teach you something about the three R's and I'll do it in the form of an equation so maybe you can understand this time retirement equals rest plus relaxation it's a prize not a punishment so today is payday not only for him but for me as one of the 3,160 graduates because I get to do what I always wanted to do and publicly say thank you I give you President Santoro Professor Santoro, Dean Santoro please sit down thank you very much I really I came prepared with a history of the law school I thought I would be spending some time here but I don't think I'm going to use it and I don't think I will take very much of your time this has been a very long program and one that I have enjoyed very very much they all lied of course but I appreciate that seriously I do want to take this opportunity to express my appreciation for all the speakers for all of the very kind things that they said and while I will accept their accolades and I do very much appreciate Dr. Farrish Board of Trustees of the University and the Board of Directors of the Law School were naming the classroom after me or in my honor in fact it was my favorite classroom in those 8 o'clock 830 meetings I just enjoyed that classroom but the reality of all of this is that what was accomplished was actually accomplished by a whole bunch of people we would not have the law school were it not for the vision of the Board of Trustees we wouldn't have a law school were it not for the efforts of some very good friends of the University who formed three advisory committees remember Tucker three advisory committees to advise the University as to whether or not the law school should be established one of those of course was chaired by then Justice Weisberger and they put enormous hours in it's also true that we would not have had the right to grant a degree if it weren't for the Rhode Island Board of Higher Education stepping in thanks to the then Chairman Judge Leach and of course it's also a tiny band of faculty that came together to put together a library, a curriculum and things of that sort three of them are still here Dean Kogan Professor Tites and of course Dean Elnowski but they're getting rid of me apparently so I don't know and there were as a matter of fact others that joined us and we remember them fondly they've passed on Dean Gary Barr our first academic associate dean was mentioned Dick Huber the former dean at Boston College came in to help us and Ray Gallagher my former professor at Georgetown Law School came in to help us and we remember them fondly and played an important role in what we do or what we started but then of course there was Steve McGuire and a hearty band of law students who came and took the plunge at an unaccredited law school but we succeeded we got the accreditation I have to correct a few things though I wasn't dean when you came in you made president you had no dean I I also have to Louise Tites probably disclosed this deep secret that I have held the only reason I took the job as president and gave up the job as dean is I could move out of my mother's house I knew the president had a house so I took it and in any event I was going to talk to you about Malcolm Ford but Dr. Farrish took that over for me he says not much I can do about that but it is a true story I have had a great deal of time to this semester at least to think about retirement I've been cleaning out my office sort of separating out my books and cleaning out my files and sending old files to various people people have told me what I'm going to do in retirement I should take up golf I should take up photography I should plant a garden I should mow the lawn things that I've tried to avoid for 75 years they want me to do now and what is this rest and relaxation every time someone talked to me about retirement I'm going to tell you one single story about Justice Holmes that I remember reading about years and years and years ago Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes as you know was a Justice of the Supreme Court and acting Chief Justice for a while as well but he was on the bench until his late 80s or even 90 maybe but apparently one day when he was pretty old the train at Union Station in Washington headed north as soon as he got on the train he went to the parlor car he took off his coat he took off his jacket he sat down he pulled some papers out from his briefcase and he started pouring over these papers he was obviously engrossed in his work the conductor recognizing Justice Holmes didn't really want to bother him to get Justice Holmes's ticket so he waited a while but then he decided to interrupt and he said excuse me your honor but may I please have your ticket well Holmes fished into his jacket pocket his coat pocket his vest pocket he opened up his briefcase couldn't find it at all and the conductor recognizing that Justice Holmes was getting stressed out decided to say don't worry about it Justice Holmes as a practical matter when you sign it just send it into the main office whereupon Justice Holmes stood up glared at the conductor and said you don't I don't give a damn about your ticket I just want to know where I'm going and that's the way I feel like now I want to know where I'm going in two weeks I will be 50 years at the bar 47 years as a academic as Bruce pointed out 46 years as a husband now I don't know what's going to happen to me in the future I'm not taking up golf I'm not taking up photography but I do have one big fear after the university has honored me and naming the classroom and bestowing upon me the rank if you will of president emeritus and professor emeritus I'm deathly afraid that after two months of feeding me breakfast and lunch Pauline's going to make me husband emeritus so look without more I since the son is over the yard arm in any event so maybe we shouldn't go any further but thank you very very much for all of you who have been so instrumental in my having the best time of my life during these last 25 years especially the last few as faculty member I really enjoyed the classroom and I'm so thrilled to have that classroom named after me thank you all appreciate it so please let's continue this celebration we will be moving outside into the atrium for drinks and some food at some point during the next half hour we will cut the ribbon on what is now the Santoro classroom and if anyone is interested at 7.30 or so people will be headed to Aden's so please join us there as well thank you all very much