Castleton Spartan

Issue date: 3/7/07 Section: Opinion

Not long ago a fellow Alumni Board member suggested I write an alumni profile for the college publication. 'Yeah, I'll do it,' I said, 'but what do you want in it?'

"Oh, you know, what Castleton meant to you, your career, the greater meaning of life and our position in the cosmos, that sort of thing," I was told.

Well, I have been ruminating on the subject and how to organize my thoughts into a coherent few paragraphs.

Castleton in the 1960's was a smaller place than it is today although I sense that the close relationship between professors and students continues. I arrived on campus in the fall of 1965 having transferred from another college. I was one of the first 10 students to move into Adams Hall 101.

I was a history major and there were several professors who left their mark on me and continue to today in a very positive way. All of them have passed away over the past 15 years, but I was fortunate to have been able to tell them of their influence before they died. Professors Bob Patterson, Warren Cook and Holman Jordan were the ones who had the greatest influence on me. A Mr. Gosselin, who taught Spanish, also had a very large influence in my life -- though at the time I thought the event was the end of the world and my future plans.

I met Patterson my first day on campus when I was signing up for classes. He asked me what I wanted to major in and do with my life and I told him history and law.

He asked if I would like to go to Yale Law School, to which I replied 'yes.' He handed me my schedule with three history classes, Spanish, a history of art class and a geography class filled in. I was buried. He became my coach and one of my two mentors at Castleton. He taught me to be a historian and how to think.

Cook had two doctorates, one in anthropology from the Universidad de San Marcos in Lima, Peru and the second one in history from Yale. He was on his way into class one day early in my tenure at Castleton and stopped to ask why I looked so glum.

I answered that I thought that I had known some history before coming here, but that I was finding out that I didn't know very much.

He said, "Tim, it's not how much information you carry around in your head that is important, but that you know where to go to get the information."

He taught me how to research. He wanted me to become a history professor.

Jordan arrived on campus when I did in 1965. He was of a different style than Patterson and Cook, but could draw good work out of you if you did the reading and thought about what you read. He ran the senior seminar for history majors and through him I learned how to write well enough to get my paper published.

Continued...

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