Jaroslav “Jerry” Pelikan, Sterling Professor of History emeritus at Yale, has won the John W. Kluge Prize in the Human Sciences, awarded through the Library of Congress. It’s been a good month for Yale’s senior scholars: legendary art historian Vincent Scully was awarded a 2004 National Medal of Arts.

I mention this not only because both men reached staggering intellectual heights; I mention it because both were riveting classroom teachers. I had the good fortune to take classes with each of them during my freshman year at Yale, and I still have vivid memories of what each man said, and how he said it.