Remembering Charles Schmuttenmaer

IN MEMORY OF OUR COLLEAGUE AND FRIEND

CHARLES SCHMUTTENMAER,  
a member of the FAS Senate from 2015 to 2020.

Charlie was among the inaugural Senators elected when the FASS was established, and those of us who have worked alongside him these past years came to love and admire him for his boundless good humor, his open-mindedness, his passion for equity and good university governance, his work ethic, and his commitment to the Senate and to Yale.  At our meeting of August 20 the FASS held an informal memorial in his honor, and several Senators spoke of their fondness for him—their warm memories of his generosity and his kindness, and also of his hard-headed willingness to fight the good fight when needed.  His loss is devastating to us.  On a personal note I will also add, if you happened to be—like me—a humanist with no fluency in his field, it was almost shocking to discover what a big deal he was in the STEM world, because he was so humble, so down to earth, so accessible, and so grounded in an ethic of egalitarianism and decency.  No diva, Charlie.  We miss him sorely already.” ~ Matthew Frye Jacobson, FAS Senate Chair (2020/21)