Bates is remembering a master craftsman — and former member of the faculty — Thomas Moser, who died March 5 at the age of 90.
The Chicago-born Moser moved to Maine in 1966 and joined the Bates faculty in 1967 as an associate professor of speech and director of debate.
A vital part of Bates debating history, Moser took over as director from the legendary Brooks Quimby, Class of 1918, who had made Bates a world debate power during his 40 years on the faculty.
Moser’s tenure was much shorter, but still significant. In guiding Bates debate, Moser was ahead of his time, steering Bates away from the research-driven policy debate format, popular in U.S. college debating circles at the time, in favor of parliamentary-style debate, a more extemporaneous and spontaneous format.
“Debate is, after all, public speaking,” not an exercise in collecting facts, said Moser, quoted in Stanton’s Elm, the Bates debate history by the late Professor of Rhetoric Robert Branham.
A self-taught woodworker, Moser left Bates after the 1972–73 academic year to pursue a developing talent, turning what had started as a fixing furniture side hustle with his wife, Mary, in graduate school into a thriving furniture business.
He would go on to craft furniture for presidents and popes, for private homes and for libraries and institutions of higher education, including Bates. As he told USA Today in 1993, “I never started with the notion this could be successful. I just wanted to make truly well-made things of wood.”
In 2015, Moser returned to campus to receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. The citation for his degree, offered by then-Dean of the Faculty Matthew Auder, noted that Moser “may have left the Academy, but his ethics, artistry, and dedication to family and work could not honor Bates more.“
As for the Moser couches, chairs, and desks in Perry Atrium in Pettengill Hall, Auer noted that “young Bates scholars find his furniture to be as useful for studying and researching as for lounging, discussing, dreaming, and, yes, napping.”
Delivering the degree conferral, then-President Clayton Spencer compared Moser’s achievements, with its focus on family, scholarship, artistry, and business, to his signature Continuous Arm chair, “an arc of triumph, forged through patience, perseverance, and the utmost respect for history, materials, craft, and design.
“Simplicity is not simple,” Spencer concluded. “Function is essential. Elemental elegance endures.”
Despite his departure from academia, teaching remained part of Moser’s life. He published five books, mentored scores of woodworkers, and taught at institutions of higher education, including the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2016, he once again taught Bates students, in a practitioner-taught Short Term course, “Brand Culture Building,” led by Peter Bysshe ‘93.
During a field trip to the Auburn factory, Moser talked students through his evolution into a name brand, and then showed them what the materials and process looked like.
“My introduction to business was through Aristotle,” he told the students, tracing a line from a long-ago college classroom to a 21st century success, one built on principles of simplicity, elegance, and sustainability.
“He was so generous with our class that day,” recalls Bysshe, who is now head of brand development at Recon Pillar.
Bysshe recalls how Moser spoke to the students “from the heart, about everything and anything — part philosopher, part capitalist, part empath, part woodworker — all at once, with equal parts judgement and love.
“I’m grateful that our students were able to witness, in person and unscripted, one of the unique craftsmen of our time.”
