Letters to the Editor

TERRIFIC TEACHERS

Thank you so much for putting Jody Maxmin on your January/February cover. She’s the best teacher Stanford will ever employ. In fact, she may have saved my life.

On Friday, November 1, 1991, a graduate student shot six people in the University of Iowa community. As I walked into Twain’s lounge the next morning, I looked at the TV and saw the headline “University of Iowa shooting” floating over the newscaster’s head. My hands released my tray; eggs and bacon bounced on the floor as I sprinted to my room. I called home. My family and friends lived, but three wonderful former physics teachers of mine, Dwight Nicholson, Chris Goertz and Robert Smith, died. I spent the remainder of the weekend in a haze of depression. The following Tuesday, I walked through the rain to my art history class.

Surrounded by athletes, CoHo addicts and grad students from the Upper East Side, I slouched in the darkened slide-lecture room. A slide popped up on the wall. It looked familiar. Click. That image looked familiar, too. My heart started to climb into my throat as I watched Professor Maxmin use my term paper to teach the class that day.

My paper was painfully personal. I had used various images of Ajax and Achilles to talk about friendship and loss. I related their friendship, and their deaths, to my high school friend who died of cancer when we were 15. As each slide passed in front of my eyes and my professor’s words echoed through the room, I felt better about my place in the world.

The clicks stopped. The room filled with light. Professor Maxmin stopped talking about Greek art and started talking about the horrible events in my hometown. When she finished talking, she asked me if I was okay. Thanks to her, I was able to answer yes.

Ethan Diehl, ’94
Austin, Texas

I was surprised and pleased to see Ronald Rebholz and Mary Sunseri together on your most recent cover. Besides being among my best and favorite teachers, they are linked by a specific event in my life.

A year after graduation, I decided to start teaching high school math. I needed to get two faculty recommendations in order to enroll in a credential program. This was a challenge, because I had been an unremarkable B student in most of my classes and had never sought much contact with my teachers.

I decided to approach Ron Rebholz, hoping he would remember me from Stanford in Britain II three years earlier. I hadn’t dazzled him as a Shakespeare scholar (much as I enjoyed his class), but I had helped him through a window one night when we returned from a pub run to find the doors of Harlaxton Manor locked. I also decided to ask Mary Sunseri. I knew she wouldn’t remember me from freshman calculus lectures, but I thought she might provide a recommendation as my former academic adviser, though our conversations had been short and infrequent.

I was nervous and embarrassed to approach them, but I shouldn’t have worried. Each was cordial and charming and immediately put me at ease. They expressed excitement that I was embarking on a teaching career and showed no discomfort at having to write a letter for a student they barely knew.

I have been teaching for 34 years now, and I think of them every time a student asks me to write a recommendation.

Michael McCord, ’68
Burlingame, California

What fun to be reminded of the delights of studying with St. Clair Drake and Herbert Nanney (“High Marks,” January/February). Before enrolling at Stanford, I lived in a small community where minorities were completely absent—so Racial and Ethnic Relations, a course taught by Professor Drake, expanded my world and prompted me to think about how people with different racial and ethnic backgrounds could relate to one another. And Dr. Nanney’s Music Appreciation 101 made me the avid listener and lover of classical music that I am today.

Carolyn Mencke Gabrielson, ’64
Sisters, Oregon

When I was a music student in the early ’50s, Herbert Nanney, Harold Schmidt and Leonard Ratner formed a core of talented, imaginative, and musically and intellectually honest faculty in the small music department. Their outlooks are still with me, not only in regard to music but in my attitude toward thinking in general.

Carol Hirschler Goldstein, ’54
Charlottesville, Virginia

What memories your article on teachers brought to mind! I took some music courses at Stanford while my husband worked on his PhD in geology, and was privileged to be among 13 people chosen from the Bay Area to take part in the first opera workshop held at Stanford. As one of the old maids in Menotti’s Old Maid and the Thief, I sang “A Man, A Man Wrecked My Life.” By this time I was pregnant; the entire cast knew it and would break up whenever I sang that line. We were also doing the first act of La Bohème, and I was playing Mimi, who at one point sings, “I live alone and love it.” Again, the cast was in stitches. By the time of performance, we weren’t sure we could make it through without cracking up. As it turned out, the cast let out nary a snicker.

But the best memory of all was when Herbert Nanney asked me to sing Mozart’s “Alleluia” on a nationwide radio hookup from Memorial Church at 6 a.m. one Easter Sunday. I was thrilled to my toes that he chose me despite the fact that I wasn’t in the music department.

My husband and I used to enjoy walking to concerts together at Stanford. Nowadays, he pushes this 80-year-old woman in a wheelchair to go hear our 18-year-old granddaughter sing in the high school concerts in her beautiful soprano voice.

Frances Keiffer Agnew
Corvallis, Oregon

I had only one year of formal organ training under Herbert Nanney, but I, too, owe him a lot. He taught me to play with gusto. Over the decades, while “dancing” along on our church’s pipe organ, playing preludes and fugues I learned under him, I have often wondered if he were still alive. Now I can think of him in some celestial realm listening in to all of us who were influenced by him. Joyful music will fill churches for years to come because of Professor Nanney.

Gretchen Van Kleef Douthit, ’69
Russellville, Arkansas

Reading “High Marks” and “Now Hear This” in the same issue made me wish someone had had the forethought to make recordings of some of Stanford’s best teaching over the decades. Forty years after graduation, I would love to re-experience Thomas Bailey’s oratory on American history, David Regnery’s suave Biology I lectures in Memorial Auditorium, David Potter’s soft but insistent approach to the Reconstruction, Harold Bacon’s gentle guidance through the intricacies of introductory calculus, James T. Watkins IV’s dramatic and almost arrogant approach to International Organization, and George Sutton Parks’s nearly blowing up the lecture hall in the old chemistry building when, called from emeritus ranks, he taught Chemistry I, replacing an instructor who had left in scandal.

Stephen Phillips, ’63, MA ’64
Brooklyn, New York

MONA'S MOVIES

The concluding section of “Now Hear This” describes a set of silent movies “created by the wife of opera baritone Richard Bonelli.” Shame on you for assuming that because the creator of the films is female, she can be identified simply as the wife of some prominent male. Surely her name is as worthy of mention as her works.

Carole Quist, ’58
Salt Lake City, Utah

Editor’s note: Indeed. Her name is Mona Bonelli.

BY CHOICE OR BY FORCE?

Psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey (“Brain Storm,” January/February) has been somewhat demonized by those who have been treated for mental illness against their will. Your article, particularly the part about finding his sister yelling on the lawn, sheds a little light on his humanity. Yet his Treatment Advocacy Center is a major promoter of forced psychiatric outpatient treatment, which takes away any self-respect the patient may have left.

In states that have implemented such programs, a doctor can get a legal order requiring a person to take medication outside of any institutional setting. In some cases, civil servants come to the person’s house and either administer the drugs themselves or verify that they are taken. These invasive measures are justified on the basis of a diagnosis that depends on the subjective judgment of the psychiatrist.

Your article did at least note that the cause of schizophrenia is still unknown. It seems to me that the only thing Torrey’s studies have shown is that long-term use of psychiatric medicine may alter and damage the structure of the brain.

People should be free to choose whether or not to use these medications. Taking away someone’s right of self-determination is a serious affront, justifiable only in the extreme case where there’s a likelihood of immediate violence to self or others. To my knowledge, all states allow forced hospitalization and treatment under such circumstances. And even this standard is prone to abuse.

Does your choice of what to eat, drink or otherwise take into your body deserve any less protection than a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body?

Geoffrey Wood, ’91
Golden, Colorado

'MEASURE OF HUMANITY'

Accustomed to reading in Stanford about the material successes of alumni, I was genuinely proud to be a Stanford graduate when I read about political science professor Terry Karl (Being There, January/February). In an unselfish use of her Stanford education, Karl testified before the federal court that found two Salvadoran generals guilty of atrocities. Her holding the hand of the daughter of a torture victim is, for me, a true measure of her own humanity. She was facing her own ordeal in testifying but still recognized the importance of every individual affected.

Karen Worley Pirnie, ’68
Montgomery, Alabama

JUST GAMES?

President Hennessy is to be congratulated on his January/February column, “These Games Are Getting Out of Hand.” Although I know his views are shared by many officials and faculty at other universities, few have had the courage to speak out. Stanford’s continuing effort to treat education as primary over athletics makes it a joy to be a Cardinal fan.

Philip Wile, ’52, JD ’57
Davis, California

I enjoyed reading President Hennessy’s thoughts on the difficulties that have evolved in the student-athletic programs of the country’s major sports. I’d like to share a personal experience related to this.

After several years of noticing that Notre Dame football was featured every weekend on NBC, regardless of how good the team was at that time, I called the NCAA and was told the following: the NCAA had attempted to end such monopoly contracts but was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court. I read the decision and the dissenting opinion (by Rehnquist). The Court ruled that the NCAA itself would be creating a monopoly by dictating which teams could be televised rather than allowing this to be set by the free market.

In this situation, Notre Dame commands a legion of loyal “subway alumni” (Catholics nationwide who root for the school), which guarantees a large television audience and, therefore, a continuous supply of cash to both NBC and the Notre Dame football program. Enough money, for instance, to buy our coach.

Perhaps the more enlightened presidents of the Division I colleges could get together to end this travesty, and possibly set up “real” academic requirements that students must fulfill in order to play on the team.

Kingsley Roberts, ’75, MS ’76
Menlo Park, California

I agree that we should not let the Farm drift toward a “farm team” concept for pro sports. Nor, in my opinion, should we drift to the point of diminishing returns with too many nonbasic sports such as the ridiculous agenda in the modern Olympics.

Ray Malott, ’38
Pala, California

APPLAUSE AND DISAPPOINTMENT

Publishing “Enron in Retrospect” (Letters, January/February) was journalistically brave, and I applaud while feeling disappointed that a Stanford emeritus professor seems to have been one of those ethically irresponsible board members of Enron.

Your magazine is a delight to read, and the reminiscences are great. Kevin Cool’s column on teachers is what finally prompted me to write. I do, however, endorse the complaint in the letter titled “Add Some Pepper.” We live close enough to read about Stanford problems in the San Jose Mercury News, but many alums do not.

Wolfgang Schaechter, MS ’59
Santa Clara, California

NO PLACE FOR POLEMICS

The Class Notes columns are not the place to air polemical and political views. I was disappointed to find two such entries in your latest issue.

The contributions from Forrest Deuth, ’98, and Brooke Atherton, ’99, were essentially polarizing diatribes. Stanford is quite mistaken in allowing, and thereby condoning, divisive submissions in this part of the magazine. It is Stanford’s responsibility to ensure that the Class Notes columns serve their tried-and-true purpose: reconnecting alumni with their classes.

Danielle Monosson, ’98
Washington, D.C.

Editor’s note: We do our best to retain the voice and spirit of every Class Notes submission while also editing out inappropriate material. In this case, we failed. In the future, we will be more vigilant about editing Class Notes entries that promote overt political or ideological messages.

TURNING THE TABLES

I’d go one step farther than Kerry Rodgers (End Note, January/February). Not only did I like—no, love—waiting tables, but I can honestly say it was the only job I’ve held that I didn’t hate.

Fifteen years after graduating from Stanford, I feel a little misled. High school life offered a balance of physical, social, artistic and intellectual activities, and I entered Stanford as a bright, stereotypically well-rounded 17-year-old. At that age, I could have articulated the essence of the life I wanted to lead: small, local and physically active. I believed that getting “the best education I could” would enable me to contribute more and get more within that small life. A mover and shaker I never was!

After graduation, I realized I had been groomed for work in the kinds of status-oriented fields that repulse me, and that my debt load would sentence me to years in such environments. My time in corporate America was the worst in my life, something I hope never to repeat. I’d put on the apron again any day!

Barbara Saunders, ’88
San Francisco, California

‘SOUL OF THE VILLA’

As one of the many nonartists whom Nathan Oliveira has touched, I am thankful for your portrait of him (“The Color of His Dreams,” November/December). I was one of the 40 or so fortunate to have spent fall quarter 1985 in Florence while he was there as visiting professor/artist. Nathan quickly became the soul of the villa and a father figure to us all. (I recall some harrowing days and nights when we feared we might lose him to illness.) Toward the end of my time on the Farm, he even took the time to help establish a potential employment contact for me in Switzerland.

Nathan Oliveira exemplifies what a Stanford professor should be—passionate about his work and equally passionate about sharing his gift and knowledge. Kudos to Stanford for giving a great artist, and a good man, space to ply his craft.

Joseph DiChiaro III, ’88
Santa Fe, New Mexico

PLAY IT AGAIN . . . AND AGAIN

In her article on the 1982 Big Game, Jackie Krentzman detailed three ironies of the Play (“And the Band Played On,” November/ December). First, it wouldn’t have happened at all if Stanford hadn’t called timeout too early. Second, officials failed to whistle the play dead when a Cal player was tackled. And third, of course, there was the trip through the Stanford Band.

But there was a fourth irony, and it has escaped much attention. As the Cal players sprinted toward the goal line, they tossed the ball back over their shoulders. The speed with which they were running in one direction was greater than the speed with which they tossed the ball in the opposite direction. As a result, when the ball was in the air, it continued to go forward toward the goal line. A couple of those “lateral passes” were actually illegal forward passes, or at least that’s the way it looked to me.

Charles Ballard, MA ’81, PhD ’84
East Lansing, Michigan

The fifth and last lateral was clearly an illegal forward lateral. I’ve watched the videotape dozens of times, and it plainly shows that the final lateral, despite appearing to be thrown backward from Ford to Moen, actually went forward 2 1/2 yards. Run the tape in slow motion and watch where Ford releases the ball and where Moen catches it. It’s not even close—the ball is caught 2 1/2 yards in front of where it was released.

So take heart, Stanford fans. You don’t need to debate Cal fans about whether Garner was down before he lateraled; just have them check out the illegal forward lateral and they’ll never mention the Play again.

Girard Lau, ’81
Honolulu, Hawaii

Richard Rutter (Letters, January/February) writes, “Women, I would contend, are not well suited to write about college football.” As a woman and an avid fan of Stanford football, I am shocked to hear this misogynistic sentiment expressed by a Stanford graduate. I was raised to believe that women are “well suited” to do anything. Mr. Rutter’s letter was a reminder that there are still some highly educated people who, inexplicably, do not share this belief.

I would like nothing better than to be assured that his comment was merely facetious. I am afraid that it was not, however. As a graduate of an elite institution that has supported the equality of men and women from its very earliest days, Mr. Rutter should know better.

Deena Skolnick, ’03
Stanford, California

In the town where I live, Paul Salata, a community “yell leader” with a wonderful sense of humor, hosts an annual Irrelevant Week, honoring the last draft choice in the NFL. It is quite a celebration. In 1982, the honoree was Tim Washington from Fresno State—but to add to the fun, Stanford trombone player Gary Tyrrell was also invited.

It’s refreshing to see that at least a few alumni have allowed the sour grapes of remorse and recrimination to turn to the sweet wine of recovery and remembrance. Thanks for the article. It was “all right now.”

Shirley Schieber, ’51
Corona Del Mar, California

In ESPN Classic’s version of the ’82 Big Game, it’s not hard to see that the officiating was scatological. The announcers even refer to this. But I see the Play as ludicrous, not tragic. I remember equally well that Elway completed a long pass near midfield when it was 4th and 17 from his own 13, with less than a minute left—a snapshot of the brilliant NFL career to come. And no other game will ever carry the tag line “One man to beat: the trombone player!”

College football reminds us sometimes of the imperfections and injustices that life unavoidably entails—imperfections that symbolize what we, in our folly, desperately hope to watch rather than exhibit.

Of course, we wuz still robbed.

Bob Wilson, ’59
Boulder, Colorado

CHILDREN AND TV

“Spoiling Our Kids” (November/December) describes research pioneered at Stanford on the effects of television on children’s emotional development. It also makes clear that Stanford investigators continue to inform research and social policy in this important area. The article fails, however, to acknowledge the pivotal contributions of the late Alberta Siegel, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, who was the first woman to receive tenure at the Medical School.

In 1969, Professor Siegel was appointed to the U.S. surgeon general’s scientific advisory committee on television and social behavior. She testified before the powerful Senate subcommittee on communications, which first brought widespread public attention to television’s influence on children’s behavior. Throughout her career, she worked to extend research findings in child development to educators and parents who could usefully apply them to the raising and education of children. This she did both locally, chairing the advisory committee at Bing Nursery School from 1992 until her death in 2002, and nationally, becoming perhaps the only Stanford Medical School professor to publish in The National Elementary School Principal.

Elizabeth Mark Marincola, ’81, MBA ’86
Bethesda, Maryland

IMMODEST PROPOSAL

Reading “Support for Gay Freshmen” (Farm Report, November/December), I was glad to learn that Stanford sent a representative to a recruitment fair for gay high schoolers last May. But perhaps the University’s effort to attract a diverse student body should not stop there. How about recruiting young women who have sex with older men, or young men attracted to younger girls? And believe it or not, there are even some high schoolers who abstain from sex. To be truly diverse, we would need to recruit students representing all kinds of sexual orientation and activity.

Seriously, there is no place for discrimination of any kind at Stanford. But does this mean we have to know an applicant’s sex life and openly recruit for it? When did sexuality change from a private activity to a badge of honor?

Bob Zeidman, MS ’82
Cupertino, California

FOREIGN CONCEPTS

The title of President Hennessy’s November/December column, “Why Foreign Students Are So Important,” leads one to believe that he will tell us why foreign students are so important. Instead, he simply tells us that they are.

President Hennessy says there are long-term benefits of attracting students from around the world. He goes on to note that international students have made multiple contributions to academic life at Stanford and that they contribute enormously to maintaining U.S. leadership in science and technology. But he never manages to tell us how they perform such wonders.

President Hennessy suggests that foreign students who return home have a positive influence on their compatriots’ views of America. If that is true, how does one account for the fact that the international prestige of the United States has reached a nadir while the percentage of foreigners at places like Stanford is higher than ever before?

As I recall from my time on the Farm, Jane and Leland Stanford established the University so that Californians would not have to travel to the East Coast to obtain a superior college education. If Stanford has always had a significant percentage of foreign students, it was not evident while I was there.

William P. Gregg, ’47
Cincinnati, Ohio

A CUBICLE AT HOOVER

Bob North (Obituaries, November/ December) and his wife, Woesha, were our best friends at the married students’ housing in Menlo Park. Bob and I were both struggling to support families while majoring in international studies. I have always been proud that I was the one who first brought him to the Hoover Institution. While he was a much better scholar than I, my advantage was in being more of a people person and an employee at the Hoover Library. I was able to arrange for him something he badly wanted but had been unable to obtain: a study cubicle. So began a long relationship between the man and the institution.

As so often happens, we drifted apart when I went into the business world in Texas and Louisiana and he remained in academia, where he obviously excelled. Periodically I would see some mention of him or read one of his novels. Thanks for allowing me to learn of his career, even if it had to be in an obit.

Frank MacPherson, MA ’48
Burnsville, North Carolina

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