Mentors' Ode

Professeur Jacques Louis Lions

One of my very first memories is trying to figure out what a "France" and a "Lions" were.

I heard these two words frequently as a toddler.  Bla bla bla France....La France bla bla bla would pipe out of the radio...and the television (black and white). The radio and TV did not talk about Lions but my parents did, seemingly all the time.

Unlike the other words which I easily connected to the numerous objects pointed out to me (door, banana and apple...), those two, France and Lions, remained disincarnate for quite a while.

I remember my epiphany, at a very young age, that...France was the hospital! We lived in front of a large one, which I could see from the window of my living room. A large and tall, non-descript, complex of buildings that I saw every day: clearly  France.

The other word, Lions, remained mysterious longer. Eventually, as a preschooler, I settled on a  solution: a Lions was a large feline but pronounced with an s a the end.  This made sense in a family where among my grand-parents and my parents, about eight or nine languages were spoken.

I don't exactly remember when I found out that Lions was a person, not a large Andalusian cat. He was my dad's mentor.

In our second year leadership seminar, we spend a few hours on authentic leadership: the idea is that such leadership comes from within, is rooted in the narratives that we have about ourselves, our passions and most cherished values. Every year, as I listen to my fellows' stories, I also have the opportunity to think about my own. The point is not that the stories are "true"; they are distorted by the properties of time and memory, factually flawed...Nevertheless, the point is that they are powerful.

So, lately, I've been thinking about what stories ground my mentorship ethos and naturally my memories have drifted to Lions: known publically as an exceptional scientist and known by his mentees and their family members as the ultimate mentor: pater familias, friend, advisor, critique, teacher, sponsor, strategist etc...Lions was a person, not a lion, and we, the mentees and their families, gravitated around him.

I've recently realized that Lions had a famous mentor as well, Laurent Schwartz. Another genius, known for research which earned him a Fields medal, a passion for butterflies and human rights.  I am reading his extraordinary autobiography A mathematician grappling with his century. I am only at the beginning, enjoying his tales of childhood, and enchanted by the workings of his young mind, e.g., "Sometimes I used to recount historical events to myself, which I modified to make good triumph over evil. I made Athens best Sparta, Vercingetorix Caesar....". 

I am deeply grateful for this academic great-grand father of sorts.

Till Later,

Anne