Fagley
Move forward from Buenos Aires at 20 to Tulane at 30. Fagley, a priest of science, consultant at the N.O.Regional Research Lab where I worked as a research chemist, and professor of Physical Chemistry at Tulane impacted my life in several ways:
It may have been my first semester on the GI Bill of Rights, providing essentially free schooling to us vets. Anyway, while still working at the lab, I took a night course in Fagley's famous undergraduate Physical Chemistry. He had a reputation for failing half the engineering students (who had to have the course to graduate).
It was difficult, but I was cutting it. A recent acquaintance was trying hard, but without much success. I invited him to my house for the evening before the big exam. I extended myself to teach it.
I don't remember how he came out, but I got 100, almost unheard of for Fagley's students.
That fall I enrolled as a graduate student in Physical Chemistry, with Fagley as my professor. At the beginning of the term he told us we would all receive B's.
His lectures were a trial for him and for his students. If he could go as slow as possible (for him) and we could get on our tiptoes with attention, the two minds occasionally met.
I was there (near a window), but I wasn't really. My mind was a thousand miles away, thinking about a call to be a minister. Fagley was working patiently, and I got it (sort of), well enough to light up a cigarette.
He gave no overt indication that he had noticed that; he just advanced his pace about 300% and started scribbling formulas on the blackboard faster than anyone could possibly grasp.
I had chosen Fagley for my teacher because I discerned that he was a priest of science. But I suddenly realized that he was emotionally quite immature. "Was that the mind I wanted to take as my guru?"
Soon thereafter I went to Fagley and confessed to him that I was about to enter the ministry.
Now here's the shocking thing: he informed me that I was the third of his students to take that course.
Glory be!
It may have been my first semester on the GI Bill of Rights, providing essentially free schooling to us vets. Anyway, while still working at the lab, I took a night course in Fagley's famous undergraduate Physical Chemistry. He had a reputation for failing half the engineering students (who had to have the course to graduate).
It was difficult, but I was cutting it. A recent acquaintance was trying hard, but without much success. I invited him to my house for the evening before the big exam. I extended myself to teach it.
I don't remember how he came out, but I got 100, almost unheard of for Fagley's students.
That fall I enrolled as a graduate student in Physical Chemistry, with Fagley as my professor. At the beginning of the term he told us we would all receive B's.
His lectures were a trial for him and for his students. If he could go as slow as possible (for him) and we could get on our tiptoes with attention, the two minds occasionally met.
I was there (near a window), but I wasn't really. My mind was a thousand miles away, thinking about a call to be a minister. Fagley was working patiently, and I got it (sort of), well enough to light up a cigarette.
He gave no overt indication that he had noticed that; he just advanced his pace about 300% and started scribbling formulas on the blackboard faster than anyone could possibly grasp.
I had chosen Fagley for my teacher because I discerned that he was a priest of science. But I suddenly realized that he was emotionally quite immature. "Was that the mind I wanted to take as my guru?"
Soon thereafter I went to Fagley and confessed to him that I was about to enter the ministry.
Now here's the shocking thing: he informed me that I was the third of his students to take that course.
Glory be!
posted by Larry Clayton at 1:08 PM
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