Buzzer sounds, students rise. Barton Bernstein may have been the first professor in history to conquer that Pavlovian response.
When the buzzer sounded in his class, America Since World War II, Bernstein would hold up two fingers and, without a skip in his cadence, say, “Two more minutes.” As the quarter continued, more and more students overcame their reaction to the buzzer and remained in their seats.
If Bernstein could have begun his lecture two minutes before the buzzer that started class, he would have. Most professors eased into class, spending a minute letting the group settle down, or making what small talk one can make with 100 or so people. Bernstein began his lecture instantly. You learned to have your notebook out, pen poised above it, from the start.
Which leads me to another memory of him: if ever there is an Olympic sprint event in lecturing, Bernstein will be in Lane 4. The man spoke New York fast, and he was riveting. More than any nugget of information that I learned from him, I recall the passion he spewed forth rat-a-tat-tat and the passion he awoke in me.
I was not one of Bernstein’s star students; I don’t know that I ever had a conversation with him. But God, how I loved to listen to him. I want to return to Stanford and pay attention to every professor the way I did to Barton Bernstein.
-IVAN MAISEL, ’81
