Latin School of Chicago

UP FRONT 2012 RETIREES Warren Hawley ���The people were very important. The students, first, but also the colleagues ��� who were not just colleagues, but also friends.��� Warren Hawley 16 This fall, for the first time in more than three decades, Warren Hawley is not teaching math at Latin. He is not the chair of the Math Department. Instead, he is retired. And he sounds delighted about it, quite frankly. ���It���s been a pretty seamless transition,��� Hawley said. ���As a teacher, you have summers off, and so I���m used to having that chunk of time. And now that fall has started, I can���t say I miss it much at all. The school sent us off in a great way at the end of last year. ���I do miss the people, of course,��� he said. ���The people were very important. The students, first, but also the colleagues ��� who were not just colleagues, but also friends.��� Hawley arrived at Latin in the summer of 1979 and taught mainly in the upper school. Latin, Hawley said, gave him the ���freedom L AT I N M AGAZINE to teach and experiment.��� He said the school helped him achieve ���the things I wanted to do professionally: When I took a sabbatical, and wrote a book, the school did everything to support me.��� In turn, Hawley has shown an enduring commitment to Latin. At 2012 Class Day, he was honored with the Augustus K. Maxwell, Jr. Award for extraordinary support, loyalty and devotion to Latin School. Tom Canright, a longtime middle school math teacher, considers Hawley a mentor ��� not to mention a superlative teacher and thinker. ���Warren was unflappable,��� Canright said. ���He always stayed calm, whether he was dealing with a student, parent or colleague.��� This calm demeanor helped him have an unprecedented run of nearly 30 years as Math Department chair, interrupted only by a sabbatical year and a year as interim director of the upper school. ���He knew how to write great math problems, both for math contests and to challenge his students in class,��� Canright said. Now that he���s no longer tied to a classroom schedule, Hawley plans to spend more time with his wife. ���There is life after Latin,��� he said. ���We have our things to do. We joined a gym, and travel is a big part of our plans.��� They will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary next February and plan to visit Europe for the first time. They���ll also go to California to cheer on their son running in the Big Sur Marathon. But even though Hawley is making travel plans and he won���t be seen around campus anymore, he hasn���t entirely left the school behind. He maintains his Latin School email account and is keeping up with school news and developments. One upcoming event is of particular interest. ���I am anxious to see how things work out with the math contest,��� he said, referring to the annual Latin School Math Contest, which Hawley ran for many years and which attracts about 300 students from the Chicago area each year. n

• Cover