photo by Sally McCay
WALK WISELY, CARRY A BIG STICK
A mace is a weapon and hornbeam, ideal for an ax handle, is some of the hardest lumber to be found. But fear not, there is no menace intended in the new hornbeam mace belonging to the UVM Honors College. Maces these days generally serve for ceremonial marching, not mayhem.
When the Dewey-Buxton Mace debuted at this spring’s graduation, it symbolically linked the Honors College, one of the university’s most recent initiatives to enhance undergraduate education, and perhaps its most historically notable alumnus—intellectual and educational pioneer John Dewey, Class of 1879.
Abu Rizvi, Honors College dean, and his staff were in the market for a ceremonial mace more than a year ago. There are catalogs for such things and Rizvi had one on his desk, where Bill Davison, professor emeritus of art who teaches an occasional course for the HC, saw it and asked about the plans.
Davison suspected it was the sort of project that would interest his friend Brooks Buxton ’56, a longtime supporter of UVM, the arts, and things Vermont. Soon Buxton was on board, backing the creation of a one-of-a-kind mace with his characteristic attention to detail and aesthetics.
The catalog was tossed. Plans were drawn up for a mace that would be thoroughly Vermont. The hornbeam is from a tree that grew at Shelburne Farms; the shaft was crafted by Beeken & Parsons woodworking in the farm’s historic barn; the metalwork and the mace’s stand are the work of Conant Metal & Light, the Burlington business of Steve Conant ’78.
But the most significant Vermont connection is the mace’s celebration of native son John Dewey on the 150th anniversary of his birth and 130th anniversary of his graduation from UVM. A metal band around the neck is etched with Dewey’s words: “Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself.”
Thomas Weaver