Clarke OUT!!

In December, 2022, I announced my retirement effective September 1, 2023 ending thirty years on the faculty of Astronomy and Physics at Saint Mary's University. Following that announcement, life became a string of "lasts" and most profoundly, my last class was on April 5, 2023 (PHYS 3210; Computational Methods), and my last exam was on April 21, 2023 (PHYS 3201; Math Methods II).

Retirement comes with very mixed feelings. There are certainly things about academic life I will not miss: small-stakes politics, departmental meetings, administrative chores, chasing grants, etc. But there are many aspects I will miss, and at the very top of this list is the steady contact with students and being part of their development over their years at SMU. To all the undergraduate and graduate students who entrusted me with part of your education during my career, I thank you. It has been an honour and great privilege, and I can only hope that in the end, there was more good in being "Clarked" than bad!

At my request, there was no departmental "send-off", no gathering to clink glasses and wish a bon voyage. These functions always struck me as rather forced and rarely sincere. For me, the best send-off was students making a point of coming by my office to thank me for "inspiring them", "changing how they think about physics", and "teaching them most of the physics they learned". Further, the spontaneous presentation of cards and gifts from students touched me more than they could ever know.

The outside (left) and inside (right) of a card presented to me by my PHYS 2303 (Mechanics II) class on the last day of classes. The equations and expressions on the outside are excerpts from my lessons which were available to them on-line in my "flipped-style" of classes. The large-font, darker expressions on the "surface" are actually from my MHD Primer, which they found on my "Documents Bar". Altogether, I had 21 lessons with two midterms and a review day, and so the reference to "Lesson 22" on the left of the inside pays homage to my course structure complete with its own enumerated "lesson plans", echoing how I introduced each lesson to them.

The plate on the left came from a student whom I helped with immigration issues and who happened to like how I taught my courses. The inscription reads "If student life is a time for sowing seeds for the future, teachers like you are the ideal nurturers." How can any retirement gift top that? In the middle are the front and inside of a homemade card with an embroidered star from another appreciative student: "I found your classes instrumental in building my physics abilities. Thank you for everything." She knows how to tug my heart strings! Finally, on the right are cupcakes!! Normally, I bring treats to final exams (Nanaimo bars or oatmeal chocolate chip cookies; my repertoire is limited). For the first time, my PHYS 2303 class brought treats of their own to the exam: cupcakes, each with a different Greek letter on it including my favourite (which they well know), ξ!

I have so many wonderful memories from my thirty years at SMU, many of which were bearing witness to students' "a-ha moments" that I might have had a part in.

And so to all the students past, present, and those I will never meet, I bid you a fond adieu.

Epilogue: To former students and off-campus colleagues who may be wondering about my post-retirement affiliation, the simple answer is I have none. At some point, I managed to anger a particularly vengeful and vindictive member of my department who, as bad luck would have it, sat on the Senate Executive when my recommendation for emeritus status was raised. Not getting her way when the department voted to launch my recommendation, she used her influence on the Senate to ensure it failed there, thus ending my thirty-year affiliation with Saint Mary's. Am I bitter? You bet. It'll be a cold day in hell before I set foot in Saint Mary's again. Am I defeated? Far from it. I've just published a 500-page text in my area of physics with Cambridge University Press, and I continue to work on code development (AZEuS) from my home office in Halifax.

I would welcome contact from any of my former students, collaborators, classmates, or long-lost friends who may happen upon this page.

August, 2023; updated October, 2024.