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A DINNER TRIBUTE TO--

[[images]]3 headshot photographs of Dr. Davis[[/images]]

[[image]]headshot photograph of Dr. Derek C. Bok[[/image]]

[[image]] headshot photograph of Richard C. Gerstenberg[[/image]]
[[caption]] DR. DEREK C. BOK  RICHARD C. GERSTENBERG[[/caption]]

Dr. William Menninger, asked to define the criteria of emotional maturity, responded as follows:
"Having the ability to deal constructively with reality. Having the capacity to adapt to change. Having a relative freedom from symptoms that are produced by tensions and anxieties. Having the capacity to find more satisfaction in giving than in receiving. Having the capacity to relate to other people in a consistent manner with mutual satisfaction and helpfulness. Having the capacity to sublimate, to direct one's instinctive hostile energy into creative and constructive outlets. Having the capacity to love."

He might have been describing Dr. John Warren David - except that such a description would only be a beginning; entirely omitted would be the quality and the value of his unique contribution. 

Dr. Davis, now 86 years old and totally involved in this third major career, has demonstrated throughout a "creative and constructive" lifetime that ability and "the capacity to love" can build far more enduringly for a people and the whole society than "instinctive hostile energy."

John W. Davis was born into extremely humble circumstances in Milledgeville, Georgia, February 11, 1888. In 1903, since there were no high schools in the State of Georgia for Negroes, he entered Morehouse College, worked his way through high school and college (rooming with Mordecai Johnson) and graduated in 1911.

He remained at Morehouse as a teacher and business manager for five years, and during that period completed graduate studies in Physics, Chemistry and Geology at the University of Chicago. 

In 1919, when he was only 31, he was named President of West Virginia State College - a position he originally intended to hold for only a few years. Instead he stayed on for 34 years, expanding the school's enrollment from 21 to over 1900 during his tenure, and steadily building its academic reputation as one of the country's outstanding land grant colleges, as well as one of the state's leading cultural centers.

Because of the great personal respect Dr. Davis had earned as scientist, educator and administrator during his long and distinguished service, President Truman in 1952 appointed Dr. Davis to the first Board of Directors of the National Science Foundation, under the chairmanship of Dr. James B. Conant, the President of Harvard University. (Awarding Dr. Davis Harvard's honorary Doctor of Laws degree the following year, Dr. Conant praised him as "dean of American--