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275 Gather for Norm Christensen Celebration
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His son, Jamie, called him a builder.
President Nan Keohane described him as an artist who created the Nicholas School from "found materials" and put it together into a marvelous collage.
It was Norman L. "Norm" Christensen's evening.
More than 275 friends and colleagues came together on the Levine Science Research Center (LSRC) lawn on Saturday, April 7, to eat, to celebrate, to dance and to sing the praises of this man who oversaw the birth of the School of the Environment and has parented it for 10 years. Even the weather cooperated by providing a warm, balmy evening. Norm will step down as dean on June 30, and turn the leadership over the Bill Schlesinger, who also joined the group to toast Norm and to observe the 10th anniversary of the school.
Sitting at tables decorated with elements that represent the dean's botanical interests - wood, flowers and bee hives and rocks - the crowd listened attentively as friends, family, faculty and students talked to the crowd about the man everyone calls Norm.
Joe Ramus, friend, professor and former Marine Lab director: "We in Beaufort are changed. We in Durham are changed, are transformed in a timely, programmatic context ... for this Norm, we thank you."
Charlotte Clark,
Ph.D. student and first director of the Center for Environmental Education:
"He has a totally open door policy to students. ...He is excellent as
a teacher and mentor. ...His lectures are put together like a good mystery."
She presented him a gift from the students, a 1905 first edition Primer
of Forestry by Gifford Pinchot.
more...
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here for more photos...
Taking the Nicholas School ‘Challenge’ Changed Norm’s Life
by Scottee Cantrell
Dukenvironment Magazine, Spring 2001
Norman L. Christensen Jr. says it was a sense of "parentship" that led him in 1990 to seek the deanship of the new School of Environment. He had chaired the Provost’s Committee on Environmental Science and Policy, which recommended creating the new school, and then, with his colleagues, he shepherded the proposal through the approval of Duke’s trustees. "This was something that I had invested a lot of intellectual energy and biological energy in developing, and I really wanted to see it happen." Being named dean in 1991 was a transforming moment, and he says he is "eternally grateful for the opportunity." "It actually changed my life."
In the 10 years since
he stepped down as chair of the Botany Department and took over the leadership
of what is now the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences,
he has overseen enormous change: the construction and occupation of new
space in the Levine Science Research Center (LSRC); large increases in
the size of faculty, research funding and the MEM program; creation of
the Coastal Environmental Management program and two undergraduate majors;
growth in the school endowment from $3 million to more than $60 million;
establishment of nine endowed faculty chairs, and greatly increased national
and international recognition.
more...
Gala honors departing Duke dean
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Norm Christensen is retiring after10 years heading Duke's Nicholas School of Envirionment and Earth Sciences. |
By JENNIFER CHORPENING
: The Herald-Sun
jlc@herald-sun.com
Apr 8, 2001 : 9:11 pm ET
DURHAM -- Under a gleaming white tent on a perfect spring night, the dean of Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences belted out the beginning of the blues ballad "Me and Bobby McGee," after receiving two lawn chairs to mark the end of his decade years as dean.
"Feeling good was
good enough for me," crooned Norman Christensen Jr., accompanied by a
band, before jumping down from the stage to begin the dancing with his
wife in the gala on the university campus Saturday night.
more...
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In the 10 years since Christensen stepped down as chair of the Botany Department and took over the leadership of the Nicholas School, he has overseen enormous change:
There was the
day that Norm was flying out somewhere and he waited until the last
possible moment to leave for the airport. When he parked his car
at RDU, he realized that he had left his suitcase in his office.
He called me in a state of high anxiety to see if I would bring
it to him ASAP.
Before
I started at Duke, I assumed that Dean Christensen would be an extremely
intimidating person, too absorbed with the larger issues of the
school to spend time much time with the students. After the first
day of pre-orientation last summer, I realized that I couldn't have
been more wrong.
April
9, 2001 March
12, 2001 Jan.
3, 2001 Dec.
1, 2000 Oct.
4, 1999 Dec.
9, 1997 Dec.
8, 1995
November-December
2000 Duke Magazine
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