In early 2024, it became profoundly important to Derrick Lawrence ’91 (1969-2024) to seal a lasting part of his legacy to this campus—to make visible and concrete an expression of thanks and admiration for the institution that helped shape him. He has done so with the Biology Department Commons in the Science Center, named with a generous and wholehearted bequest. 

The iconic Derrick arrived at Amherst in the fall of 1987 from the Antilles School in St. Thomas. His mother hailed from St. Kitts, his father from Nevis—both small islands in the West Indies—and they wanted the very best education for their son and worked hard to ensure that he got it. “It wasn’t easy coming from where I come from,” Derrick recalled. “I know what my parents did for me.”

Derrick graduated as a history major in 1991, but the biological sciences held a special place in his imagination and in his early years at Amherst. Also formative were his close first-year friends, including Marcus Alston ’91, and his engagement in a movement that successfully pressured President Peter Pouncey to decline renewing the College’s contract with Coca-Cola, which followed a nonbinding student vote to ban the sale of the soft drink on campus because of the company’s refusal to close its operations in apartheid South Africa. After Amherst, Derrick attended Columbia University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. He worked as a stock-trader for many years.

“Amherst helped me to develop as a person, to think critically, to see two sides of an argument,” Derrick said. “I knew I wanted to give back to make sure that the College can continue creating for others the kind of foundation it created for me.”

"Derrick loved and appreciated the College and he exemplified the character of its students—dedicated, open-minded, hardworking.”

—Marcus Alston ’91

The Biology Department Commons is an academic and social hub for the department. Students and faculty meet there to eat lunch, to hold research-group meetings, and to discuss science with visiting seminar speakers. It is a space where connections deepen and ideas grow. It is the kind of place Derrick said he would have loved to hang out in, and he felt glad that today’s students get to enjoy it.

Derrick was proud to be from the Caribbean and to be able to represent the region with a legacy gift to Amherst. Marcus, Derrick’s best friend, pressed Derrick to be absolutely sure that, of all the worthy causes in the world, Amherst was unequivocally his choice. “He was adamant,” recalled Marcus. “He said, ‘I want to do this for Amherst, and I’ve wanted to do it for a long time.’”

It makes sense. “Derrick loved and appreciated the College,” Marcus said, “and he exemplified the character of its students—dedicated, open-minded, hardworking.”

With Derrick’s passing, the Biology Department Commons has come into being. It is a tribute to the powerful connection between Derrick and Amherst, and a gift to our community. To Derrick, it was a final and humble thank you: “I feel that what I’m contributing is small compared to what Amherst has given me.”