Susan Lewallen '76
Student and great admirer
Bob Borrelli and Courtney Coleman remain to this day the best teachers I’ve ever had. Bob’s generosity of spirit inspires me and I can learn to be a better person myself from reflecting on it. In the last few years he brought me back to thinking about mathematics again and I was lucky to spend a few hours with him and ask some questions I wish I’d had the sense to ask when I was his student 37 years ago. It is a privilege to have known him and been his student. Bob will be alive in so many hearts and minds for years and years.
Liz Baughman
I’ll miss Bob stopping by my office to just chat or to check on the endowment funds he supported throughout the years. If you look up the word Gentleman in the dictionary you should see a picture of Bob Borrelli. Bob was always interested in having a conversation about HMC, about the Math Department, about what was going on in your life, and about what was going on in his life. I recall going to Ursula’s service at Our Lady of Assumption and I so admired his strength as he spoke about his time with Ursula and how she enhanced his life. They are both together in peace and probably enjoying a glass of fine wine!! He will be missed.
Ami Radunskaya
Colleague
Bob was a wonderful mentor and my good buddy. I had the best dinner of my life as his guest at a gathering of the “Royal Order of the Purple Palate”, where we were supposed to identify each of the fifteen wines served. His encouragement as I blundered through this challenge was typical of his support throughout my career: “Don’t worry about what THEY think, you’re doing great.” He was never patronizing, but he understood that – in his words – some interpersonal dynamics in our community involve “too much testosterone”. His advice about teaching, publishing and chairing departments has been invaluable to me. Since our first meeting during my interview at Claremont, we’ve worked on many projects together and, at our last meeting last week, Bob melted my heart when he said “We make a good team!”. I’ll wear my red vest with pride and fond memories. I’ll miss you, dear friend.
Richard Zucker '74
Student, Advisee, Friend
Bob was my thesis advisor during my senior year, and I’m sure my affection for him is largely due to that experience. But that was only part of it. He was a kind and gentle and jovial man who was bigger than life. He was easy to love. I will miss him very much.
John Trager '96
Inspired by
During my senior year of college, Prof. Borrelli and my girlfriend rekindled the HMC Wine Tasting club, after a several year hiatus. We had a good time, and learned a lot, but that wasn’t really what I’ll always be grateful for him for. The last meeting of the year, he supplied the majority of the wines, and the pinnacle of the tasting was a 20-year old first cru bordeaux that had to be worth $500/bottle. That experience changed me. Not because the wine was so transcendant (which it was), or because of the monetary value, but because Prof. Borrelli loved wine and sharing so much that it was perfectly natural for him to gift thousands of dollars worth of his collection to (largely ungrateful) students so that they could experience the heights of the art.
Over the past eighteen years, I’ve made a habit of hosting tastings of all kinds, and have regularly paid the lion’s share of the bill for expensive libations of all sorts so that others could experience them. I can credit that impulse to Prof Borrelli, who taught me that it’s more important to share the experience than to count the cost.
I regret that I don’t have an academic memory to share, but I am so grateful for the experience and the spirit of giving that he imparted, that I needed to share.