The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 14

A14 THE BOSTON GLOBE WORLD I REGION MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1909 'Pain. 7 'fiat's the philosophy of higfier education that we work ROBERT GAUDINO, William College profetior Professor's legacy still teaches .1 i 2 I WILLIAMS Continued from Page AI money, and energy into a fund dedicated to continuing the Gaudino legacy on this campus and others. Returning over the weekend to mark the 25th anniversary of Gaudino's death, they pledged themselves again to the importance of "uncomfortable learning," especially in an age when college students are seen as customers paying $30,000 to be pleased, and campus is more like a warm bath than an upset stomach. "I graduated in 1974, but I didn't come back to my reunion," said Michael Lucow. This is my reunion." The diversity and success of the "Gaudino alumni" are an eloquent testimony to the power of great teaching and to liberal arts education, at a time when reports decry the demise of both.

The alumni range from the deputy chief executive of Lazard Freres to the head of Harlem Congregations for Community Involvement, prominent conservative William Bennett as well as Carleton College President Steve Lewis. "For everyone who took a course from him, there just wasn't anyone else who did that, "who got you to think critically about the world, who engaged you in the process of learning the way he did," said Richard Metzger, a Washington lawyer who oversaw the deregulation of the telephone industry for the Federal Communications Commission. "You can't duplicate him. Gaudino is sui generis. What you can do is encourage others who are interested in creating the same type of experience." The obvious question is the one Gaudino would have asked first: and peach ice cream in his living room, at film screenings and at campus debates.

And in the late '60s, he began two programs, first Williams-in-India, then Williams-at-Home, both designed to put students face to face with the unfamiliar, either in a foreign country or in this one in Appa-lachia, the farming Midwest, the segregated South. Students would live with families and work on farms, on assembly lines, in stores. He wanted the programs to be more than semesters abroad; students had to take courses on the history and culture of the area before they left, and when they returned had to spend another course reflecting on what they had seen, learned, and experienced, for there could be no education, he believed, without reflection. "I went to Yale Law School, and I can't remember 2 percent of the content of what I studied there, but I do think the nonacademic life skills that were developed, particularly by Gaudino, are what has shaped my life ever since," said Jeff Thaler, who graduated in 1974. Gaudino continued to teach and run the programs in India and the United States until his death on Thanksgiving Day 1974, of a rare neurological disorder.

The fund was begun soon after. By1981, a board of trustees gathered to try to decide how best it could spend the money it raised, about $62,000, to keep alive Gaudino's vision of education. It based its decisions on a 54-page memo that attorney Richard Herzog, a 1960 graduate, wrote, and in the years since the fund has helped support programs at Williams, including a study program in China, an Urban Studies program in New York City, a Gaudino scholar who runs Gaudino forums every Monday night on campus, and an intensive freshman residential seminar. As they gathered here over the weekend to mark the official opening of classes, more than 100 alumni took part in panels and discussion groups. Inevitably discussion turned to what their mission should "Higher education in certain ways is getting the message that what it ought to be about is student learning," Lewis, the Carleton College president, said.

"What Gaudino did, what great teaching is about, is making the student the active partner, not a passive vessel into which you pour knowledge. It's about what students learn, not about what I say as a teacher." The task of the Gaudino alumni, as one said, is to "bear witness" to the power of that kind of education. As the alumni gathered for a dinner tribute to their teacher, Thaler stood before them and wondered what Mr. Gaudino would have said about their gathering. One thing was certain, he said.

He would have asked "Why?" 1.3 SHOW BOB GAUDINO A legacy of learning tered and homogenous backgrounds. True education, he believed, required them to experience "otherness," to step outside their experience and perspective. Marty Linsky, a former legislator and Weld administration official who teaches at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, holds an image of Gaudino in his mind, 40 years after taking a political philosophy course from Gaudino. In it, Gaudino leans across the table with his disproportionately large head, his round and probing eyes, and asks a question. As Linsky answers, Gaudino leans in eloser: "But why, Mr.

Linsky, but why?" "It was the most intense academic experience I ever had," Linsky said. "It had this very deep impact, which was the realization that all this going-to-school stuff had Something to do with me as a person, as opposed to getting good grades, absorbing information the stuff I had been used to as a typical, middle-class high school students "jt was that next step that I think has made it significant, which is bringing it back to you. It's more than you have a responsibility as an educated person to know the great works; it's, also, you have a responsibility as a human being to connect what you learn to your own life." Dale Riehl, who took a class with Gaudino 15 years later, admits a certain fear of going to class. But you always wanted to be there," he "You could not miss his gaze and his engagement He had the remarkable personality of understanding people in great depth. He didn't please people, but you always knew you'd be challenged." It was "The Paper Chase," but with patience rigorous, yet outrageous and often irreverent Discussing career plans as he prepared to graduate in 1960, Lewis mentioned that he might like to be a college administrator, even a college president "But Mr.

Lewis," Gaudino replied, "I thought you were interested in education!" Gaudino gave his students the opportunity for otherness not only in the classroom but all over campus, at discussion groups over doughnuts OYSTER PERPETUAL DATE SUBMARINER Why? Why would this teacher above all others inspire so many alumni to return so often and so many years later to renew his legacy? Gaudino arrived here in 1955 with a newly minted doctorate from the University of Chicago and taught political science for 19 years before his death at age 49. His classes were small, at most 20 students, meeting around an oblong table late in the afternoon, even in the evening an hour then unheard of. He demanded formality, insisting that everyone show up on time, addressing his students by their last names, insisting they complete the reading and be prepared to answer his questioning. He began by going line by line through the reading. Then the questions would begin Would Nietzsche approve of Mao? What would Locke talk about if you invited him to dinner? all designed, to test the depth of understanding.

In today's jargon, what Gaudino called "uncomfortable learning" might be called critical thinking, or even character education. It was highly unconventional in the late '50s and early '60s. But Gaudino believed, largely correctly, that most of his students were coming from shel- a ma MP ravages FALL r. '4 I Your $15 admission fee may IF II THIS sioi IS BETH irilZ CLAIBORNE FASHIOt Magazine invite you to a breakfa and sensatior fall faship hosted' Saturday, September 25, 10am-1pm Chestnut Hill, Women's World $15 admission fee. RSVPat 1-800-4-EVENT-2 Each guest will receive a special gift from Mode and CHANEL i I i John Paul beatifies a Slovenian ASSOCIATED PRESS MARIBOR, Slovenia Pope John Paul II went to the Balkans yesterday to honor a bishop who preached patriotism and tolerance, and the pontiff decried the dangers of extreme nationalism.

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