By the end of 1970, I made another change in my professional life and in my lifestyle, in general. Although I had been content with my career as a civil servant with the NIH, I continued to dream about a return, someday, to the life of academe. It was now time to return to that dream. Once again, it was a matter of whom you know and what luck you have. Some may call it destiny.
Dick Louttit was a friend and a former Grants Associate. When he graduated from the GA program, he technically left the National Institutes of Health to become a program director with the National Institutes of Mental Health, a companion agency to the NIH, one with Institutes charged with studies of the brain and psychology rather than of the body and physiology. Over the last five years we had maintained a close relationship. In early 1970, Dick left the NIMH to become Chair of the Psychology Department at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He replaced Dr. Mortimer Appley, who was appointed Dean of the Graduate School for UMA. Mort was now in search of an Associate Graduate Dean for Research. Dick recommended me for the position.
I visited the campus and fell in love with it and the small town of Amherst, which had three colleges and was part of the Five-College Consortium in Western Mass. The town’s population consisted primarily of faculty, staff and students at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College and the newly formed, innovative Hampshire College.
My childhood dream had been to be the President of a small college. My mother and I had spent many evenings listening to a radio program, staring her favorite actor, Ronald Colman. He played this part, being in charge of The Halls of Ivy. The “Halls” lived a perfect life of action and tranquility on their small, ivy-covered college campus. This is what I wanted out of life. This dream had been an essential part of my educational pathway, especially through Cornell and Dartmouth. I envisioned that Amherst would provide an opportunity for continuing along this road. It did and it didn’t.
If I had remained with the NIH, I probably would have advanced through the existing civil service ranks. As an Associate Director of an institute-level component of the agency, I already held a GS-15 position, the highest level prior to a Congressional appointment. I was not sure I wanted to engage in the “politicking” needed to obtain a GS-16 appointment. Little did I realize, at the time, that academic “politicking” is much more difficult and ego-demanding!
In 1970, I saw only the potential benefits of being associated with one of the Five College institutions. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst was the largest of the five, being one of the major Land Grant schools of the United State, created by the Morrill Acts in the mid-to-late 1800’s, that initiated state agricultural and engineering schools. In Massachusetts, UMA was the “agricultural” school and MIT, the “engineering” institute. Cornell was another unique example with a combined campus for agriculture and engineering supported by state funds and a private college supported by donations. Texas A&M represents the organization of the usual land-grant university.
Amherst College, another member of the Five College Consortium, was a former male-only-college dating back to the 1820s. Hampshire College, with a non-traditional academic program, opened that year, 1970, on the south side of town. Hampshire, ultimately, was too non-traditional and announced its possible closure or merger with another institution in late January of 2019. However, it apparently is still hanging on as 2023 begins!
The other two members of the Five-College Consortium were originally places for women to obtain a private, higher education: Smith College in Northampton, eight miles to the west of Amherst, and Mount Holyoke College about twice as far to the south of town. A student enrolled in any of the Five-Colleges could attend classes at any of the other schools with no additional cost: a great advantage for young adults paying a state tuition at UMA.
When Mort Appley offered me a position as Associate Dean in the Graduate School of UMA, it did not take me long to agree to my return to New England. I eagerly looked forward to another change in my career pathway, one which could lead me toward that dream goal: the Halls of Ivy.