One night in my senior year I was bicycling by the rickety communication buildings around 11 p.m. Lights burned in a single window. Professor Rivers was in his office, grading papers.
William L. Rivers’s lectures in Comm 100 were fun, but that wasn’t the class’s attraction. Rather it was the two-page typed responses he attached to every assignment. His comments varied from in-depth consideration of small points to perceptive analysis of the work as a whole. He encouraged us to include questions at the end of our papers. I once asked: do reporters usually go into stories with a theme in mind or discover one as they go along? Here’s his answer:
“I’ve never thought about this before. If I were honest with myself, perhaps I’d decide that, like you, I choose the theme beforehand or have one ready to test when I start (even though I’m not aware that I do). I think, too, that many students who write color stories (about football games, for example) tend to decide that the mood of the crowd is like their own mood. (Well, not only students operate that way.) The only thing I can suggest is: ideally, in setting out on an assignment, the reporter is a piece of litmus paper, ready to be colored by the event. The reporter selects quotations on the basis of instinct, judgments of newsworthiness, general sensitivity, etc. He selects too many at the beginning because he doesn’t know the theme. But the theme develops in his mind fairly early, whereupon he no longer needs to make notes on everything that occurs. That’s oversimplified, but it comes close to expressing an ideal.”
How much time Rivers spent on a single question from one of the more than 300 five-page papers he received in a quarter. No wonder he worked so late!
It’s possible the time spent grading papers went faster because of Rivers’s sense of humor. Students’ typos were entered into a collection he called “The Little Miracle Dictionary of Broken English.” I still laugh aloud at “slumnus least—likely to succeed.”
Communication majors (and their friends) always signed up for Comm 225B, which they considered the University’s most entertaining class. Rivers would invite seven or eight speakers per quarter. There were some pretty big-name people: New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal, movie industry leader Jack Valenti, even advice columnist Abigail Van Buren.
But none of them could compete with Davey Rosenberg. The San Francisco promoter didn’t bring his most famous client-topless dancer Carol Doda-but he did come with “guests”: a transvestite singer and a stripper. The two performed in the small communication amphitheater as students packed the aisles and doorways. I don’t remember how far the show went, although I’m sure the stripper got down to a G-string. What I do remember is Rivers standing in the corner with a sort of cracked smile on his face. At the show’s conclusion we students witnessed a real first: Bill Rivers at a complete loss for words.
- PATRICIA FELS, ’75, MA ’76
