To the Editor:

Bill Kennedy As Journalism Prof

I had just finished reading Roscoe, and was hungry for an update on my old journalism professor and acquaintance, Bill Kennedy, when my UAlbany magazine arrived in the mail and satisfied a craving I didn’t think would be easily satisfied.

I was reminded of an incident when I was a student of Bill’s and an editor at the Albany Student Press. He called me into his office and showed me a copy of an article I had written for ASP and submitted to him in our class. He held the paper tightly in his hands and very deliberately ripped it into pieces, line by line. As he ripped, he ripped into me for my sophomoric (I think I actually was a junior at the time) self-indulgence (The first word of almost every sentence was “I.”). He then handed me back the paper shredded as neatly as something that had been through a machine. It was a lesson I have never forgotten.

Thanks, Bill, for that lesson, and thanks,
UAlbany magazine, for catching me up on one of my journalistic/literary heroes.

Alan Abbey, B.A.’75
Jerusalem, Israel

The Rest of the Story

We read with interest “The Right Thing” (UAlbany, Spring 2002) and the letter written in response in the Fall 2002 magazine. But there is another side to the story. There were those members and alumni of Gamma of Kappa Delta Rho who felt that the fight against discrimination could be better fought from within the organization. This is exactly what they did. They remained Brothers of Kappa Delta Rho, took the “fight” to the national level, and by 1954 had any discriminatory clauses removed from the National Charter. Kappa Delta Rho has grown from 16 chapters at that time to over 45 chapters today, with 19,000 living alumni. All of this, in spite of the fact that Gamma Chapter of KDP at Albany had its chapter revoked by the New York State Legislature. They’re proud to say that they, too, worked to eliminate discrimination within the fraternity system of the United States. We each worked in our way, and are equally proud to be fraternity brothers still loyal to our alma mater.

Curtis L. Pfaff, B.A.’48, M.A.’50
President, Gamma of KDP, UAlbany, 1946-47, Advisor, Beta of KDP, Cornell University, 1957-1972
Hackettstown, N.J.

Memories of the College for Teachers

Good memories last a long time, and the memory of what I called Teachers College and you now call the downtown campus have lasted more than 60 years for me. UAlbany magazine’s Fall 2001 issue (“The Downtown Campus: Glorious Legacy, Proud New Role”) brought them back vividly to me.

I went to State to become a teacher, of course, and I did get a fine education while I was there. But I have to confess that my warmest memories are those of the informal, social and extra-curricular life I enjoyed there.

In the basement hallway under the colonnade leading to Hawley Hall was a room called the Publications Office. The P.O. housed the desks of the students who worked on the State College News and the yearbook, The Pedagogue. It was always full of students, some of us actually working on the next issue and others just hanging around chatting. It was relaxed, very social, hard-working, memorable fun, and always buzzing with activity.

Just outside the door were the student mailboxes, an alphabetical array of cubbyholes hanging on the wall. During changing of classes they were always surrounded by a crowd. You could get mail from home there, of course, but more often you’d find a penciled note that said, “Meet me here at 4:30.”

But most of all there was The Commons. Could anyone who was there ever forget it? It was a single large room under the Hawley library, and it served as the College lounge. The half of the room on the Western Avenue side was full of tables, and the tables were usually pretty full of students, many of them (including me) who acted as if Spending Time In The Commons was their major. We sat and played terrible bridge, or discussed the State of the Universe and other Important Things. We gossiped, or we just passed time away. There were a couple of ashtrays on each table — virtually everyone smoked then — and the whole room was usually full of blue haze.

The other half of The Commons was an open dance floor. Every day from noon to 12:30 someone would turn on a rack-mounted phonograph and play the hit 78 rpm records by Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and the other Big Band orchestras of that day. I learned to dance in that room between my 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. classes. We danced the Lindy Hop, of course, and the slow dances that in those days let you hold the girl close against you and dance cheek-to-cheek: pleasures I’ve enjoyed all my life.

Most importantly, I met Jane Heath, B.A.’45, the woman who is still my wife. We danced together in The Commons. We drank coffee at the Boulevard Cafeteria. We dated. We sat on the lawn in front of Draper and talked. Eventually, like so many other men, I went into the Army and, in the middle of her junior year, I asked her to marry me. To my lifelong
delight she did.

Jane and I left Albany in 1948 and have not returned very often. But we still do and always will remember State College as one of the high points and landmarks of our youth. Your story on the downtown campus, with its excellent photographs, brought all these memories back vividly to us. Thank you for running it.

Andrew Takas, B.A.’43
Harrisonburg, Va.

Go Danes!

On behalf of the men’s lacrosse team, I wanted to say thank you for the wonderful article on our program in the Fall 2002 magazine (“The Boss of Lacrosse”). The exposure will certainly open the eyes of our alumni as to where we are heading in athletics.

Scott C. Marr, Coach
Men’s Lacrosse Team

Alumni Relations

E-mail: msamuels@uamail.albany.edu
Mail: Melissa Samuels, Director
University at Albany
Office of Alumni Relations
Alumni House
University at Albany, SUNY
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12222
Phone: 518-437-4493; fax: 442-5839

Letters to the Editor:

E-mail: cmcknight@uamail.albany.edu
Mail: Christine Hanson McKnight,
Editor, UAlbany Magazine
Office of Media & Marketing, UAB 209
University at Albany, SUNY
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York 12222
Phone (518) 437-4987,
Fax (518) 437-4990