Even though you have been gone for more than 50 years, I still to this day appreciate your guidance and wisdom. The advice you gave urging me to attend your alma mater Northeastern and experience the co-op opportunities, were invaluable. During my time spent in the late ’60s at Northeastern as an English major and...
Category: Right Column
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Two Paths, One Journey Toward Light and Hope
We lived and studied in Boston at a remarkable time. In the immortal words of Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” It was the best of times in that new voices and movements were emerging and echoing across the country. As a reporter and then news editor...
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I Never Discovered Who They Were
I never found out their names, although I did try years later — the names of the admission committee that decided to admit me to Northeastern. That was in the days before applications were simply scanned and reviewed by an algorithm for qualifications. As Elton John would sing, I was a farm boy, I was...
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9/11 Still Resonates for Uncle Joel’s Nephew … and for All of Us
Joel Miller died Sept. 11, 2001, a week shy of his 56th birthday. So much has happened to this country and to our world in the past half-century that it is impossible to fairly summarize it. So I will focus only on the event that affected all of us and its singular effect on me. On...
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The Third Man: Film to Museum in Vienna
VIENNA —When a motion picture — in this case “The Third Man”— is regarded by critics and its admirers as a museum piece, an obvious challenge is how to build a museum around it. It was a challenge that Gerhard Strassgschwandtner welcomed. Situated among 15 small rooms on a rather nondescript street in central Vienna...
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You Can’t Print That! Then there Was Fallout
Students did not meet the president of Northeastern University. Unless you had committed an exceptionally laudable deed, or one of exceptional blackness, you did not encounter Asa Knowles until your last day at college. After more than a decade running Northeastern, Dr. Knowles knew that cultivating a serene alumni and calming the parents of future...
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Into the Fray (and Surviving) as Northeastern News Media Adviser
In the spring of 1967, I received a call from then-Executive Vice President Ken Ryder. At the time I had just become an assistant professor in the English Department. We met, and he asked me if I would consider leaving the English Department and joining the administration as an assistant dean of students. He wanted me to...