Donald W. Scherer

1940 - 2024

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

BOWLING GREEN – Donald W. Scherer, a philosophy professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University, who studied and taught environmental ethics as he supported – and adopted – sustainable practices, died Monday at University of Toledo Medical Center, the former Medical College of Ohio Hospital. He was 83.

He'd been in the hospital for a month with heart and multiple other health problems, his wife, Charlotte Scherer, said.

Mr. Scherer, who had a doctorate from Cornell University, retired in 2003 from BGSU. He joined the philosophy faculty in 1967.

He and his wife built their home in Wood County's Center Township, just outside the city, to be energy efficient. They included a wind turbine on the property.

"He had a passion for making the world a better place," Mrs. Scherer said.

Until recent years, he'd served on the board of Green Energy Ohio, a nonprofit group that, through education, promotes sustainable energy policies and technology across the state. When he was elected board president in 2007, Mr. Scherer also was the project director for the solar power generated on the rooftop of BGSU's ice arena.

"In the time I have been here, I want to say he was the conscience of the organization," said Jane Harf, Green Energy Ohio executive director since 2017. She was hired by a board committee that included Mr. Scherer.

"He kept us focused on the task at hand," she said. "He was so dedicated to the issues of sustainability and justice and equity. In all those things, he was ahead of his time."

Environmental ethics had been Mr. Scherer's focus at BGSU since the 1970s, more than a quarter-century before Green Energy Ohio's founding in 2000.

"He was very influential," Ms. Harf said. "He definitely made a difference in the environmental movement, coming from academia, but having that real-world understanding."

Mr. Scherer, in the early 1970s, started to teach courses in applied philosophy. When the university established a college of health and human services, he and other philosophy colleagues taught courses there on ethics in such fields as medicine and business.

"Don was an instigator of this type of thing," said Tom Attig, who joined the department in 1972, was department chairman from 1983-94, and became a close friend. Mr. Attig was inspired by Mr. Scherer's example and approached faculty in nursing and gerontology about teaching a course on death and dying.

"I wouldn't have been as enthusiastic unless Don's influence rubbed off on me," said Mr. Attig, now of Victoria, B.C., who since has written widely on grief, loss, and care for the dying.

"He was highly energetic," Mr. Attig said. "He was always interested in issues of the day, especially environmental and social issues and matters of ethics. He thought they weren't just for pie-in-the-sky theoretical engagement. It was kind of in his bones to think that philosophy shapes lives and makes a difference in individual lives and can also do it in addressing political issues and social issues of the day."

The colleagues in the early 1980s compiled an anthology of writings on ethics and the environment. Mrs. Scherer said they "bounced philosophical thoughts off each other for 50 years."

Mr. Attig said each improved the other's work through those conversations.

"In my lifetime, I spoke about philosophy heart-to-heart and head-to-head with Don more than any other person I know. And we laughed," Mr. Attig said. "He's not simply bright. He's deeply serious about what it's worth being deeply serious about."

In 2016, Mr. Scherer and journalist Carolyn Jabs collaborated on the book, Cooperative Wisdom: Bringing People Together When Things Fall Apart, which focused on virtues needed to dissolve conflict, restore goodwill, and build common purpose.

Unwillingness to consider multiple viewpoints is an obstacle to cooperation, Mr. Scherer told The Blade in 2017.

"If we don't brainstorm together, we won't be effective," he said. "The great religions teach us to move beyond a focus on our individual self."

Before BGSU, he taught for three years at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y.

He was born June 22, 1940, in Detroit to Althea and William Scherer and grew up on the city's east side and in Grosse Pointe Woods. He received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Wayne State University, where he and his wife met.

"He always had a hug for somebody," she said. "He was an introvert in many ways, but he learned to reach out to people. He had a deep care and love for people, and for me."

He was an elder of First Christian Church in Bowling Green.

Surviving are his wife, the former Charlotte Erpelding, whom he married Aug. 27, 1960; daughter, Karen Krueger; son, Mark Scherer; sister, Carole Enwright; 11 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 1-4 p.m. Sunday at Dunn Funeral Home, Bowling Green. Services will begin at 10:30 a.m. Monday at First Christian Church, Bowling Green, with visitation after 9:30 a.m.

The family suggests tributes to the church or the Environmental Defense Fund.