This essay was written for inclusion in the “Oral History Project” of Kent State University, to be published in 2023.
During my sophomore year at Niles McKinley, several students went to KSU to take the regional, high school biology exams. On first sight, I fell in love with the ivy-covered halls crowning the hillside above the tree-covered campus. Since I wanted to be a high school science teacher, my enrollment, in September 1953, for Kent’s program leading to a B.S. in Ed. was inevitable. As a result of those high school science exams, the University offered me a scholarship which included four years of tuition and fees. In order to provide funds for housing, board, and books, I was offered work at the reception desk for Stopher Hall, the only men’s dormitory on campus. I managed the switchboard and transferred incoming calls to banks of telephones in each lounge. Passing residents answered the ringing phone and, shouting down the corridors, summoned those students being called. After living off-campus for the next two years, I returned as a resident-counselor for Johnson Hall, the second men’s dorm at Kent State.
Many of the hours between my classes were devoted to drinking coffee, smoking Kent microfilter cigarettes, and conversing in the Hub, where there was a daily contest to determine how many chairs could be crowded around each small table. The air in the Hub had more smoke from cigarettes than the amount produced by the Central Heating Plant across the street from the Student Union. Later, after joining Delta Upsilon fraternity, my coffee and cigarette consumption was transferred to the Capt. Brady Grill, opposite Prentice Gate, or the equally smoke-filled Rocky’s, a downtown bar frequented by the DUs.
It was at the Capt. Brady, during my senior year, that I met Karen Swank, a junior majoring in secondary education. We were introduced by her AXO sorority sister, who had been pinned to one of my fraternity brothers. Karen and I had a magnificent two-hour conversation in one of the grill’s garishly colored booths. However, I had forgotten her name when we met the following night in the Brady. Across a room crowded with fraternity and sorority members, I greeted her with: “Hi, Stupid.” Fortunately, she replied in a similar fashion. We have been married for over six decades and have lovingly continued to use this greeting with one another.
During my first year in Stopher Hall, I shared a triple room with two roommates, Al Kennedy, a chemistry major from Cleveland and Carl Oglesby, a polysci major from Akron. We had many long, evening-discussions about the world, in general, as only freshman can. My interactions with Carl were long ranging. In our junior year, he became the “Big Brother” who began the Macedonian Club, a men’s group formed as a protest against Greek-letter fraternities. At the time, I was Parliamentarian of the Student Government Council that had to approve acceptance of the club’s constitution, which included the goals: “…. To promote appreciation of the modern arts. … To criticize each other’s work, and … To improve the ‘humdrum existence’ on campus.” Carl finally agreed to exclude the purpose identified as “… bear baiting, boar hunting and falconry.” He did not graduate from KSU but, later, at the University of Michigan, became one of the founders of the Students for a Democratic Society. He also wrote a book about his visit to Castro’s Cuba and as well as another about the KSU tragedy of May 4, 1970.
My time at Kent holds many memories of non-classroom events. Stuffing colored crepe paper into chicken-coop wire at 3:00 am, is not easily forgotten. The results, for lawn constructions on Homecoming and for floats pulled by shining convertibles on Campus Day, were worth the all-night efforts. DU fraternity members were noted for their black-light productions for Pork Barrel and, on Campus Day, for painting the “K,” which dated back to its beginning as Kappa Mu Kappa. DU members were also known for their participation in basketball, swimming, diving, production of the Kent Stater and campus politics. One of them, Lou Holtz, also did well in football. Many of them participated in contests at Rowboat Regatta and other intramural events, including the local College-Bowl trivia-game broadcasts. I was on the DU winning team for three consecutive years. Karen was on the AXO team which placed first during the following year. She was also Parliamentarian of the Student Government Council, the year following my service in this role!
One of my favorite professors was Dr. Gerald Read, who taught a course in the philosophy of education. Beginning his series of lectures with a presentation on a major approach to education, he convinced me that this approach was, indeed, the way I wanted to teach. He then followed with lectures on how what he had presented made no sense and offered views on another educational approach, which was far superior, until he tore that one apart during his following lectures. After multiple build-ups and teardowns, I recognized a need to develop my own educational philosophy, incorporating parts of everything he had taught. This result is what education should be about!
Towards the end of my freshman year, I realized that, by taking at least twenty credit hours each quarter and a few summer classes, I could, during my four years at Kent, earn a B.S. degree, with a major in chemistry, along with the B.S. in Ed. In September 1957, I entered the Ph.D. program at Cornell University and, four years later, received a doctoral degree with a major in biochemistry.
Upon completion of my graduate degree, I held postdoctoral research fellowships at Dartmouth Medical School and Oregon State University. I then became a scientist-administrator with the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. My shift to academic administration began with a position as Associate Graduate Dean for Research at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and ended with becoming the Director for Faculty Research Resources at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. It was also during this period that I was ordained as a Permanent Deacon in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. In 2014, I received the Centennial Alumni Award from the College of Education, Health, and Human Services, at Kent State.
The variety within my professional life began with the many opportunities KSU afforded me during those initial years of collegiate study and of the formation of lasting friendships. Several years ago, having moved to a retirement Community in Houston, Karen and I joined a group of residents devoted to writing down memories for transmittal to our children, grandchildren and future generations. My own efforts for this “legacy in words” can be found in a blog I initiated: “CameosAndCarousels.com.” An elaboration of my years in Niles, Kent, Ithaca, Corvallis, Bethesda and Houston can be found there by anyone interested in my life as an “academic bum,” which began at Kent State University seventy years ago!