CLASS OF 1953 WHO'S WHO & WHERE - The City College Fund

the BSS degree. I sat in Dean Gottschall’s office looking very worried. It was recommended thatEnglish majors switch to the BA, but the BA required Latin or Greek, and I had already completedmy foreign language requirement with Spanish. “What do you want to do in life?” the avuncularMorton G. asked, holding my hand. “To teach,” I said. I meant, to teach in college, where all mymodels and mentors were. “Then why don’t you learn how to do that by taking a BS in Ed., whichrequires no more foreign language than you’ve already had.” Without the BA, I could never makePhi Beta Kappa, though I had the grades. Still, Vera was taking a BS in Ed., and we could take afew courses together, so why not? Love! I denigrated the program as did many of my friends, butrealized much later in life that I had learned valuable insights into teaching.Back to 1953: The Korean War was going on, and though newly-elected President Eisenhowerhad promised to go to Korea and end it, he achieved only a cease fire, so I was still nervous (readPhilip Roth’s Indignation.). When my draft board reviewed my status in June 1953, I had alreadycompleted fifteen credits toward the MA. They asked how many total credits were required, and Itold them thirty—without mentioning the Masters essay to follow—and so they renewed my deferralfor another year. In 1954, they asked whether I had finished my MA. I answered that I hadand had begun my doctoral studies, toward which I had earned another fifteen credits. “How manycredits for a doctorate?” “Another fifteen,” I responded, still without mentioning dissertation time.“Okay, another year’s deferment.” My draft district was rich in ineligible-for-deferment, non-collegestudents to fill the quota (grossly unfair, but joyous for me at the time). When I came before theboard in June 1955, I announced that I was now the father of a six-month-old son, and so I was relievedof my 1A draft status and wound up never serving in the military.1955-65: During our first three years of marriage and studies—Vera got an MS in Education anddid some teaching as a permanent sub in History for the Board of Ed—I worked nights at the postoffice while attending Columbia by day. I bought books as needed and tapped the libraries at Cityand Columbia, so I walked the fifteen minutes between those campuses from time to time anddropped in on my former mentors in the process. By March of 1955, it dawned on me that I mightget stuck in the post office like Kafka in the insurance office, so I ventured to get a job at a NewYork City high school in mid-semester Spring 1955, teaching English and math. I found out thatindeed I could teach. Then, in the summer of 1955, while visiting with senior members of the CCNYEnglish Department, I was offered two evening adjunct courses at City for the fall. I had finishedmy own required course work at Columbia and had the high school job renewed for the Fall. I wasstarting to scratch away at my dissertation, but I thought I could manage that writing in the weehours and on weekends (Vera was a saint). So, in Fall 1955, I began a career teaching at what wasto become part of CUNY that has never been interrupted. By spring 1956, an opening in the CityEnglish Department suddenly occurred and I was given a full-time appointment that lasted until1965, shuffling between the uptown and downtown (later to become Baruch) campuses and movingdesk and office space as required.If I were asked to give the most memorable experiences, besides the classroom teaching, whichwas always gratifying, I would have to say that they were occasioned by events of Fall 1962 and1963. In Fall 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis, I was uptown, holding regular conferences withstudents about their writing and by chance, teaching the poetry of carpe diem (“Gather your rosebudswhile ye may” etc.), when two 18-year-old girls from my class arrived together during myconference hour. They were virgins, they announced (there were such things in those days, youmay recall), but their boyfriends had urged them to surrender that status in view of the expectedatomic bombing of New York City. Why go to their deaths without having known the deepest meaningof love? I was thirty, to them an older man, and the father of four, and surely I could advise