Hobbes and Jefferson came calling for the alum who never met our Portraits of Human Greatness

By Gary Bouchard

Take a walk across the Saint Anselm campus with Dr. Bob Duhaime ’57, and you’ll be accosted by at least one student, shouting a jovial "Hi Bob!" as if this distinguished, retired dentist were a classmate—which in fact he is.

Most people retiring after four decades of hard work and great success look forward to spending some time in a soft chair with a few good books. Not Bob. Leaving his successful full-time practice in Peterborough, New Hampshire, he chose the not-so-soft confines of a classroom desk, and a few great reads, like The Iliad, Cicero, Augustine, Hobbes and Jefferson. Having journeyed to the Arctic to photograph polar bears, and to the jungles and grasslands of the African continent, and to the 18,000-foot base of Mount Everest, Duhaime left his ascent of Everest for another day, and in 2003 made a more familiar climb, up the stairs of Alumni Hall, to return to the classrooms where he had begun his college education some 50 years earlier.

Duhaime enrolled in HI 42, United States History, with Professor Beth Salerno. "Bob was, in effect, studying his own life in the larger context of American history," observes Professor Salerno, "and I told him that when we reached the 1930s, he would be a primary source." Salerno recalls that while generally quiet in class, "Bob spoke on topics that mattered to him like the Korean War, the GI Bill, and modern day politics." Duhaime’s very presence, Salerno notes, pushed students to work harder. "They seemed to think ‘Well if this guy thinks it’s important to take this class, I guess I might get something out of it.’" One student wrote on his course evaluation that his favorite part of class was "the older guy in our group."

That was three years ago. Since then "the older guy" has completed the entire freshman and sophomore Humanities curriculum, the only alum who graduated prior to the program’s founding ever to do so. "I loved it," he says. "There’s so much to know, so much worth reading. After leaving Saint Anselm and entering dental school [Tufts ’61], then beginning my practice, I didn’t have much time to pay attention to the humanities, and I felt a personal and professional deficiency. I needed some enrichment and I knew I could find that at St. A’s."

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