Reception to honor religion professor
Lawrence ends 28-year teaching career

By Melissa Christensen
Staff Reporter

As a junior music education major at TCU, Ken Lawrence knew he was going to be a college professor. He just didn’t realize how close he already was to that future.

Lawrence, who recently retired as an associate professor of religion, spent the bulk of his teaching career where he made that life decision, right back at his alma mater. Before teaching at TCU, Lawrence served four years with the U.S. Air Force and earned a master’s degree at Brite Divinity School and a doctorate at Boston University.

“I had no idea I would return to TCU,” he said. “A career at TCU can be glorious, and it has been for me.”

The Add Ran College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the religion department are co-sponsoring a faculty and staff reception in honor of his Jan. 1 retirement at 4 p.m. Tuesday in the Faculty Center on the second floor of Reed Hall.

Daryl Schmidt, chair of the religion department, said this is one of the first times the college, in addition to the department, have recognized a faculty member’s retirement.Schmidt said Lawrence was key in establishing visual arts as an important component of religious studies at TCU.

“He brought visual arts as another source of learning and made a livelier learning environment,” Schmidt said. “He got a lot of people without artistic inclinations to be interested in the arts.”

Schmidt said that knowledge of the arts came from self-teaching, mostly through traveling to and sponsoring student groups in countries such as Italy, Greece, Turkey, France, Germany, England, Scotland, Holland, Switzerland and Kenya.

“He felt that by standing in front of any object, you could learn to see it as a window to an entire culture, almost like a time machine,” Schmidt said.

Lawrence received 19 teaching awards during his 28-year career at TCU, including the national T.A. Abbott Award for Excellence in Teaching, the TCU Honors Program Professor of the Year, the Student Foundation Excellence Award and the TCU Student Body Faculty Award four times.

Schmidt said Lawrence’s legacy is more than just educational. Lawrence often sponsored dinners at his home for faculty and graduating seniors.

“As a professor, he helped to build a department that appreciates collegiality among the faculty,” Schmidt said. “We’re more than teachers; we’re a group of colleagues.”

Lawrence’s professional life is far from over, however. He is currently working as an educational and arts consultant at University Christian Church and is in the process of completing two books.

“I could’ve taught longer, but there were some things I wanted to accomplish yet,” he said. “I really have no intention of living in a quiet village on the coast of Florida.”

Lawrence refers to one of the upcoming books tentatively titled “Meaning in Western Religious Art” as his magnum opus, his most important work.

“I’ve written previous articles that were very specific,” Lawrence said. “This work is exciting because it is more broad. It helps people to understand how powerfully religions express themselves in the arts.”

Lawrence, or Lorenzo as his colleagues and students call him, said he plans to continue his close relationships at TCU, particularly because he works across the street.

“I’ll miss students and other professors sticking their heads in my door and saying, ‘Hey Lorenzo, what do you think of this?’” he said. “But since I’m not moving away, I can keep those relationships.”

Melissa Christensen
m.s.christense@student.tcu.edu