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01/20/2006 Archived Entry: "Biographies"

Forgotten Academic Biographies

  • Random Weathers. Holton Professor of Handwriting and Demonstrative Learning. 1910-1911. Harvard University. Fired over improper usage of school stationery.
  • Dean Sally Johlongson. Dean of Bankwater Community College. 1955-1964. First all womens community college in Montana. Taught swimming on the side.
  • "Stormin" Jack Swanson. Popular Holy Cross writing instructor. 1973-1988. Taught well attended course for first year students entitled "Makin' It!" Fired for writing letters to the editor that complained about school president's hygiene.
  • Colonel Morgan Haswell. President, Naval Academy, Sioux Falls campus. Ran experimental college for Navy officers, 1956-1961. Resigned for unknown reasons and later opened beauty parlor. College closed shortly thereafter.
  • Jade Longfellow. Only non-doctoral candidate to be granted Ph.D. at Princeton, 1981. Clerical error made her a Doctor of Philosophy. Applied for, and received, appointment as Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Washington University, St. Louis. Currently made tenure.
  • Stone Robinson. Adjunct Professor of Journalism and Foreign Languages. Missouri East State College, 1972-1975. Wrote famous textbook for first year writing: The World is But a Moment for Civil Discourse. Currently serves on College Board.

    Replies: 3 comments

    "Holton Professor of Handwriting and Demonstrative Learning"--I love that. Maybe especially because this morning I was dying while listening to the local "learning" gurus on NPR telling me how to help my children improve their handwriting. "Even in a digital age," they assured me, "good penmanship is important."

    Posted by Donna @ 01/20/2006 01:02 PM EST

    They didn't close the college, per se. We just moved it to a different kind of "runway."

    *snap*

    Posted by "The Colonel" @ 01/20/2006 10:46 AM EST

    In Nathaniel West's The Dream Life of Balso Snell, we meet a character, Miss McGeeney, who is writing a biography of Samuel Perkins. "But who is Samuel Perkins, you are probably wondering. Samuel Perkins is the biographer of E. F. Fitzgerald. And who is Fitzgerald? You are of course familiar with D. B. Hobson's life of Boswell. Well, E. F. Fitzgerald is the author of a life of Hobson. The subject of my biography, Samuel Perkins, wrote a life of Fitzgerald." And so on... Miss McGeeney hopes that, in turn, somebody will write a biography of her.

    Posted by Steve Shaviro @ 01/20/2006 10:46 AM EST

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