Covenant remembers Dr. Wilhelmus Schaffers

Dr. Wim Schaeffers with his wife, Nel

Imagine showing up to class 10 seconds before it begins and being forcibly prevented from entering the room by an aged Dutch professor sporting an atomic watch. Junior Andrew Alms doesn’t have to imagine; this very thing happened to him during his freshman year Calculus II course, taught by the now-legendary, recently deceased Dr. Wilhelmus Schaffers.
Schaffers, who ended his career as Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Applied Science in 2007 after teaching at Covenant for 14 years, went home to be with the Lord on April 20, 2009, after battling for years with a prolonged illness.
Dr. Schaffers is survived by his wife, Nel, and numerous children and grandchildren, many of whom are Covenant alumni or current students. Philip Codington, a junior business major, is one of Schaffers’ grandsons.

Dr. Wim Schaffers

“My Opa – Dr. Schaffers – was a great and goldy man,” writes Codington in his blog. “He always use to say, ‘I’m 11 years overdue. God says that the length of our days is 70 years… any time past that is borrowed time.’ My granddad lived a good 11 years and 4 months past his ‘due date.’”

At a memorial service held last Friday at Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church, it became obvious that Schaffers had influenced others not just as a demanding, rigorous academic, but also as a trusted Christian brother and servant of the Lord.
Schaffers had already retired from a 34-year career with DuPont as Mechanical Engineer before he was invited by Dr. Joseph Clumpner to come teach at Covenant. He became a member of the faculty at about the same time as Professor of Physics Dr. Don Petcher, and the two became close friends.
For several years after his arrival, Petcher recalls, Schaffers lived in a silver RV parked first on the current site of Jackson Hall, and then later on a lot near Shadowlands. “All he requested were utility hookups,” said Petcher.
Students and faculty alike looked up to Schaffers as a paragon of academic excellence. “Schaffers never turned down an opportunity to teach a course,” said Associate Professor of Physics Dr. Phill Broussard. He recalls how Schaffers agreed to teach a course in Modern Geometry, even though he knew nothing about it. Schaffers picked out a course textbook, read it, taught the class, and it ended up being one of his favorite subjects.
“Wim Schaffers had a servant’s heart and worked tirelessly for the College,” said Dr. Jeff Hall, Vice President for Academic Affairs.
“He never lost his enthusiasm,” said Broussard. “Even near the end of his life, he and Nel never complained about themselves or their own problems.”
Hall points to Schaffers “deep and abiding faith” as the undergirding motivation for all of his service and life. “He knew the Word very well,” agreed Petcher, “Especially the Psalms. When Joe Novenson would begin quoting a psalm to him, Schaffers could almost always give you the number of the psalm, and could often finish it.”
Students, however, mostly remember Schaffers’ legendary classroom intensity. “I’ll never have trouble with endurance after his classes,” said pre-engineering major Daniel Kelley. “He would start our Calculus tests at 3 p.m., and then leave and go home a few hours later. We wouldn’t get done with them until around 10.”
Junior physics major Joben Lewis appreciated Schaffers’ rigor, but struggled as much as anyone else with Schaffers’ intense tests. “Dr. Schaffers made sure I would never be afraid of failing a test or a class,” he said.
“He was certainly demanding of students,” said Petcher. But Schaffers was also beloved for his outrageous stories. Several students and professors recalled the tale of how Schaffers, as a young boy, played chess with his neighbor in Holland during the Nazi occupation by relaying moves over telegraph in Morse code. On one occasion his neighbor misinterpreted his “move” as a warning about an impending raid.
“Schaffers just moved at a different speed than everyone else,” said Kelley.