Charles Nelson Shane

Charles Shane – “Chuck” as his colleagues liked to call him -- served the Fletcher School for thirty-five years, and that was after he had retired as a captain from a distinguished career in the U. S. Navy. During those thirty-five years, four Fletcher School deans -- I among them -- were fortunate to have his strong support, wise counsel, energetic competence and total commitment to the School. For all four of us, Chuck Shane was a stalwart of the administration, calm in a crisis, ever cheerful, unassuming yet eminently effective. Chuck was the foundation on which the School weathered the turbulent political storms of the late 1960's and early 1970's and then later constructed the modern Fletcher School of new buildings, new academic programs, and a greatly expanded faculty and student body.

Throughout his years at the school, among his many concerns, Chuck had one overriding preoccupation: our students. As director of Admissions, he chose them. As associate dean, he mentored them and guided them. More than that, he befriended them. With his wife Joy, he gave our students the hospitality of their home in Wayland. Once they had left our campus and were students no longer, Chuck watched their progress, took pride in their achievements, and remained a source of support-— a letter of reference when needed, a telephone call to a potential employer, a note of congratulations on a new appointment. During his thirty-five years at the School, I estimate that at least half of our more than 6000 alumni knew the helping hand of Chuck Shane in one way or another.

When I came to the Fletcher School in 1986, Chuck had just retired and was given the title Associate Dean Emeritus and Consultant to the Dean. Emeritus in Latin means "earned by service". Few people deserved the designation of emeritus more than Chuck because his service to the Fletcher Community and the University was extraordinary.

Chuck may have been emeritus but he was not retired. As consultant to the dean -- an uncompensated consultant I might add --, he stayed fully involved in the life of the Fletcher School. Until his failing health limited his activities, he regularly came to his office three days a week and took on a variety of special assignments. He recruited students, conducted applicant interviews, represented Fletcher at various outside meetings and conferences, such as the Association of Diplomatic Academies to which he was the school’s ambassador, did numerous special research projects, and was always, always willing to help. His knowledge of our alumni was invaluable to the School’s external relations office in planning alumni events and in carrying out our capital and fundraising campaigns. But nothing could keep him from his annual excursion to pick beach plums on Labor Day or his periodic fishing trips, which he labeled “piscatorial research.”

As consultant to the dean, he was an invaluable source of advice and information that, I will confess, made my life a whole lot easier. Unfailingly polite, a smile at the ready, he was always willing to take on the most difficult tasks, and as the "good guy" of the administration, the hard tasks inevitably fell to him. When I sought out Chuck for advice on a problem, he invariably began by asking himself a basic question: not just what is best for the Fletcher School, but more fundamentally what is best for our students. As I reflect back on my conversations with Chuck, in his capacity as consultant extraordinary to the dean, I can only echo what one of our graduates wrote to him a few years ago:

"I always found you, as they say in my native Montana, as wise as a tree full of owls and as fair as an August day on the high plains."

No task was too burdensome for Chuck. For example, he voluntarily took on the job of combing through the old records and files stored in the basement of Blakely Hall to preserve in the University archives documents that were important to the history of the Fletcher School. Chuck knew that a great school not only needs a vision of the future, but that it also needs to remember its past and its traditions. He saw to it that we did not forget our past and that we nurtured our traditions. He was our School historian; he was our institutional memory; he was the keeper of our flame. With this portrait that we will unveil today, we will have a continuing remembrance of the wise and fair man who is an integral part of our history and who did so much to make the Fletcher School what it is today.