It was the 1970s when we first met. I was 19; he was about 50. Every week we would sit through Student Council meetings ”“ I, a sophomore defender of student rights; he, a faculty advocate of common sense. I liked him right from the start ”“ everything from his three-piece name to his scholarly garb. He was a tweed-and-bowtie sort of guy, a native New Englander who was built like a battleship. Shake his hand and you knew exactly where you stood.
Gerrit Hubbard Roelofs was a force to be reckoned with, and reckon we did.
Week after week, we would debate the merits of various student events ”“ which ones to fund, approve, or dismiss. Which campus site would best suit a political rally? How late was too late for a weekend dance? Roelofs and I agreed in substance on most matters; but left to the details, we would dicker endlessly as if it were sport. I think it was.
The following year, I spent both semesters abroad, paying little attention to my studies. Senior year I returned to pay the consequences: I had yet to fulfill the core curriculum for an English major ”“ I had missed several courses.
A few days after returning, I went to see Roelofs. “Welcome back!” he exclaimed, greeting me with his big battleship hug. For the first time, I was approaching him as student to teacher ”“ we were no longer sitting on a committee deciding matters of policy.
In no time, Roelofs was taking charge of my academic life. First, he offered to become my advisor. He filed the papers and made it official. Next, he outlined my options for coursework, suggesting which combinations made the most sense. Among the courses would be Brit. Lit., a twice-weekly lecture for which Roelofs was well-known. This was his forte and my weakest link.
Still there was the problem of my “gaps,” for which no single course was the solution. We would invent one: We came up with a list of Great Works, and formalized it as a full-credit independent study. Roelofs agreed to supervise the effort. We would meet twice a week and I would submit eight papers during the term.
“Miss Silverman,” Roelofs called out in Brit. Lit. “Can you describe the use of assonance in this sonnet?”
Probably not, I suspect, since my attendance in Brit. Lit. was somewhat less than diligent. His was an early morning class, mine a late night schedule. But Roelofs had a plan for this problem, too: On the mornings of his class, he would call to wake me ”“ just a friendly reminder to please show up. Thankfully, he knew not to be offended by my spotty attendance. He knew that, for me, his course was the broccoli in a balanced diet.
The real meal, it turned out, was the tutorial we planned together. There we plowed through “The Faerie Queene,” “King Lear,” “Paradise Lost.” I had never encountered great literature in quite this way. We would be discussing some aspect of, say, Troilus and Criseyde ”“ some way in which she had slighted him. Roelofs would get so worked up on Troilus’s behalf ”“ his eyes would well up, his face turn red. This looming tank of a man would just dissolve at his desk, contemplating Troilus’s wounded ego. He made you feel for Troilus in ways you couldn’t have imagined.
Come the end of the semester, I submitted my eighth and final paper for the tutorial. Roelofs, in turn, submitted the following idea: He asked me to evaluate my own work and to recommend a grade for the term. He agreed to abide by my decision.
To be, or not to be honest was never the question. The question was just how honest I was prepared to be.
“For the work I’ve done,” I wrote in the evaluation, “I would give myself an A. But because of the work I didn’t do, I would give myself a B. The decision is yours.”
And with those words, I threw the ball back into Roelofs’s court, having evened-up the score. For the first time, I had admitted what we both knew. He had trusted me to tell the truth; I had trusted him to be fair.
I don’t recall which grade Roelofs ultimately submitted. What I recall was the strange joy of the whole exchange ”“ his, mine, the surprise of the encounter.
Looking back years later, I have to wonder how this same relationship with its quirky aspects, its morning wake-up calls, would play on campus today. I wonder if Roelofs and I would have become such great friends, or whether we would have been subject to more contemporary scrutiny. Sadly, I suspect both.
— Joan Silverman is a writer in Kennebunk. This article appeared earlier in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
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