Teachers, twelfth in a series

I hadn't intended to write about nonlocal teachers when this topic came up, but after the Johnstown College memoir it seemed natural to cover all the ground (the end is in view!). The point is not to discuss teachers we can personally relate to, but the experiences we can share or relate to because they ring bells of recognition.

After two years at seminary, which was enough to qualify for examinations for ordination in my denomination, I enrolled at Shelton College in Cape May, New Jersey, to clear the few credits needed for my bachelor's degree. I was working for the president of the college at the time, as managing editor of the Christian Beacon weekly newspaper. The Rev. Dr. Carl McIntire had founded the newspaper and he had assumed leadership of the college that had originally been the Bible Institute of New York, founded by Donald O. Shelton.

Shortly after I started to work for Dr. McIntire, the campus moved from northern New Jersey to the conference center and resort that McIntire created out of the long-dormant 300-room Admiral Hotel in Cape May, turning it into the "Christian Admiral." Though it was razed a few years back because McIntire's successors couldn't keep up with the state's constantly growing demands for structural revisions to meet new codes, in the mid-'60's it was a bit of heaven on the Atlantic Coast. I fell in love with it the first time I visited it, on vacation while still editing the Nanty Glo Journal. Now, I had the opportunity to actually live there, most of the time in my summers and, when I started classes at Shelton, year-round.

Those were heady years, and during my time at Shelton I made more friends than at any other time in my life, except my teen years in Nanty Glo. I'm still in touch with some of them, but decreasingly, it seems, every year. I lived at the seminary for one semester while studying there; except for that the only on-campus living I experienced in my eight-plus years of higher education were two years at Shelton, one of those as a student and the second as a teacher.

Though many of the students were the kind of people you want to keep as friends for life, ironically my teachers there didn't measure up to ones I had at JC/Pitt, seminary, and—after marrying and moving to California after Shelton—UCLA. The only one who stands out in my mind (which is ironic because many of my friends considered him a shallow person of questionable motives), was the dean, Dr. Gordon V. Drake. I managed to take my courses at Shelton while continuing working fulltime for Dr. McIntire by doing the college's public relations as well as being managing editor of the paper.

As the dean, Dr. Drake made the day-to-day decisions about the college, so I reported to him. In fact, it was his suggestion that I remove the few credits needed to finish my degree, and he offered to help me through the process of doing so. Though not an intellectual (as my friends and I styled ourselves), he was an intelligent and creative man. I got credits for being in the college choir (which the dean taught and directed), and more units for taking a "self-study" in physical education...I made it a habit to run on the track at the Camden YMCA most weekdays, and Dr. Drake enabled me to document the time spent at that toward credit in PE. The only "academic grind" type of course I had, in fact, was a physiology course that could have done me in, but I managed to squeak by.

The fall after graduating (at which event I won the college's coveted "President's Award for outstanding contribution to college life"), there was a sudden resignation in the English department and I was asked to substitute. In the freshman class was a young woman who had already spent some time in the workaday world who caught my eye. We were married the following spring, moved to California, and I haven't seen or heard from Dean Drake ever since.

Comprehending Engineers-Take Five

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers? Mechanical Engineers build weapons, Civil Engineers build targets.

Take Six - Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints." Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections." The last said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

Lenten thought: Temptations procure crowns