Remembering Dr Yates

Dr Oliver Yates

Today I am thankful for the life of Dr. Oliver Yates and his influence on me as a biology student at David Lipscomb College (now University) in the early 1980s. Dr. Yates passed away at the age of 79 last Thursday. Although I never went on to a career in science, I will probably never know fully the extent of his influence and encouragement. His enthusiasm and curiosity were as infectious as his demand for a student's best work was unrelenting.

He is best known for his Cell Biology class, but my favorite class ever at Lipscomb was Spring Wildflowers, taught by Dr. Yates every other year. The course could have rightly been named "Taxonomy and Classification of Spring Ephemerals with Special Emphasis on the Forest Communities in Middle Tennessee." But that wasn't his style. His way was to make learning fun, and then teach you more than you knew possible once you were sucked in. What could be more fun and carefree than a class called Spring Wildflowers? (Incidentally, in the alternate years, he taught a similar course called Algae, which was almost as much fun but required taking samples back to the lab for identification.)

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I enjoyed the Spring Wildflower class so much that I basically took it twice. After taking it first in 1981, Dr. Yates allowed me to join class field trips when it was offered again in 1983. He also guided me through independent studies describing the plant life of cedar glade communities in middle Tennessee. I have many fond memories of tramping the woods and hills with Dr. Yates and his other students as he sought to show us how to use complex taxonomic keys and make meticulous notes of what we had seen. In my memory it seems like the class spent just as much time in the field as did in the classroom. I remember how he demanded that our field notebooks be as detailed as humanly possible. I remember how he would never just name a plant that we asked him about, but would insist that we work through the taxonomic key to find the identification ourselves. I remember the whole class encircled round a yellow dandelion working through the key in our wildflower guide until we came up with the correct identification. I remember how he magically led us to see the rare showy pink orchid known as Moccasin Flower or Pink Ladyslipper (Cypripedium acaule) in the Smokey Mountains. I remember Dr Yates and his wife, Betty, always seeking out the elusive Little Brown Jug (Hexastylis arifolia), a non-showy, but cute little brown wildflower that is all too easy to overlook. I remember fishing for turtles in the Tennessee River just so that we could study an algae that is only known to grow on the backs of turtles. I think his main reason for that exercise was so that we could see the wondrous diversity of life and be amazed. I remember him looking up from a microscope in amazement one time and rhetorically asking those around him, "how can you not believe there is a God when you're looking at something like this?"

Before coming to Lipscomb I had always loved being in nature. Reading people like Henry David Thoreau, Rachel Carson, and Lewis Thomas, I understood that studying life could and should leave us gawking in amazement. The world is an incredibly complex and beautiful place. Walking the woods with Oliver Yates, I got to see this scientific amazement firsthand. Dr. Yates' curiosity and sense of wonder became a part of me and I am grateful.

Linked here is a remembrance of Dr. Yates on the Lipscomb University website:
Yates remembered for impacting lives of hundreds of pre-med students.

Pink Ladyslipper, King's Point on Basswood Lake, Ontario