When Ernest Becker taught at Berkeley <br />My fellow student in the great lecture hall <br />Found him so compelling <br />He changed his major to philosophy. <br /> <br />The professor that immediately bound us was another <br /> formerly tenured at Harvard, <br /> denied Einstein’s seat at Princeton <br /> because his truth was not in numbers, <br /> baptized by television’s touch, <br />His hall of students would one day <br />Stand and applaud in appreciation of insight given, <br />I only saw the honor given once. <br /> <br />The great professor kept office hours <br />Which my friend would visit <br />He discovered that only the brilliant were welcome <br />Even an errant engineering major need not apply. <br />He was disappointed, <br />He yearned to be someone’s disciple. <br /> <br />Catherine Beck at little Geneseo <br />In a European history survey <br />Spent two weeks on Thomas More <br />Suspect it was an academic sin <br />Not the formula a great graduate seat to win. <br /> <br />I remember her well <br />Though by no means the best of her students <br />She cared enough about us to help at office hours <br />Gave guidance on the storms beyond her door. <br /> <br />Too stately for the streets <br />She made her statement in a more civil way <br />In a man five hundred years dead but alive for her <br />A not so little matter for a college kid <br />In the days when Viet Nam was a verb.<br /><br />Bill Grace<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/big-school-little-school/
