Today@Dal

On Wednesday, a small crowd of alumni, faculty, staff and students gathered to celebrate the unveiling of a plaque outside the entrance to Bronson House in Howe Hall.

The plaque honours the building’s namesake, Howard Bronson (1878-1968), who was professor and head of the Department of Physics for more than three decades from 1910 until his retirement in 1946.

“He had a huge influence on the university, shaping the curriculum and impacting the lives of literally thousands of students,” said President Tom Traves at the unveiling.

Dr. Bronson, educated at Yale, came to Dal with a passion for teaching to serve as the Munro Chair in Physics. He oversaw Dal’s physics program through a time of massive upheaval and change in the discipline, and was also big supporter of student life on campus. His passion outside the lab and the classroom was Christianity, and he is credited with helping spark a strong Christian movement on campus.

The plaque was donated by alumnus Donald F. Maclean (MA’47), who knew Dr. Bronson during his time at Dal and remained good friends with him until his passing in 1968. He felt today’s students and other members of the Dal community could benefit from knowing more about Bronson’s legacy.

Though Maclean could not attend the event in person (he resides in British Columbia), he did send along a letter of thanks, reprinted below:

I am very much pleased that a plaque is being unveiled today in memory of the late Dr Howard L Bronson. I am honoured that my offer to donate the plaque was accepted.
 
My particular interest in the eminent and distinguished Dalhousie professor after whom Bronson House was named relates to my own student days at Dalhousie University, now over 65 years ago. I knew Dr Bronson well and, as did others, developed for him a profoundly deep respect for the personal contribution that he made to the lives of so many.
 
I want to bring to your attention a book that is probably unknown to you. The book is entitled Dr Howard L Bronson, Physicist, and was authored by Professor Ernest H Heighton, Mathematics professor at Dalhousie University, who knew Dr Bronson well. In fact, Professor Heighton had Bronson House students in mind when he wrote his book. In its preface he states: “This monograph was written as a tribute to H.L. Bronson, one of Dalhousie’s most distinguished professors, and as a source of information for those students in residence at Bronson House, Howe Hall, who might be curious to know something about the man in whose honor their House is named.”
 
Dr Bronson retired in 1946 and died, at age 90, in 1968. As Professor Heighton points out, “Dr Bronson’s career spanned two world wars, a global economic depression, and sensational developments in the field of physics.”
 
For many years, Dr Bronson conducted study groups on the teachings of Jesus. It was he who started the Student Christian Movement at Dalhousie University. When Dr Bronson accepted the invitation to be honourary president of the graduation class the year he retired, he wrote in the student yearbook, Pharos: “… as you go out from Dalhousie, my earnest hope is that each of you may take as your one and only guide an unwavering loyalty and single-minded devotion to the highest that you have known, to the loveliest you have seen, to the deepest truth that has been revealed to you.”

Donald F. Maclean, 2013

(Photo/story Ryan McNutt)