A good portion of our knowledge we
know from our own experience of having lived and been aware of what happened to
us or to the places we have been. But
much of our knowledge comes from what we have read, heard about, or were taught. Of the world’s countries I have lived in two
(US and Canada), and visited 22 (Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Bahamas, Cuba, England,
Scotland, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Russia, Georgia, Union of South
Africa, Kenya, India, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Japan, Vietnam,
Seychelles). I have flown over the North
Pole, twice circumnavigated the world by teaching on Semester at Sea, and
driven coast to coast eight times. We
have driven through most of the states or I have given lectures at most of the
states (with the notable exception of Hawaii). I have lived in the US in
Massachusetts, Mississippi, California, Indiana, New York, New Jersey, Utah,
and Minnesota.
I have experienced living in slums,
in middle class comfort, but never in luxuriant wealth. I have taught at Indiana University, Queen’s
University (Ontario, Canada), UCLA, San Diego State University, Tougaloo
College, the University of Utah, the University of Minnesota, and Stony Brook
University. I have worked with the
Danforth Foundation and the Lilly Endowment for shorter stints of lecturing and
consulting universities in Colorado, Missouri, and Illinois. I have been a teacher (genetics, biology,
human genetics, reproductive biology), researcher (6 students received their
PhDs with me), and writer (13 published books).
I was an administrator twice (Associate Dean of Graduate Division at UCLA;
Master of the Honors College at SBU). I
was the Premedical Advisor at UCLA and served on the Medical Admissions
Committee at SBU.
I have been married twice (four
years with Helen; 56 years and looking forward to more with Nedra). I have had six children (one with Helen, five
with Nedra, including a daughter who lived only 4 days). I have 12 grandchildren and 3
great-grandchildren. I am an atheist (in
the theological sense of having no god concept), Unitarian (in the sense of
enjoying a creedless religion), and Humanist (in the sense of helping others),
seeking justice and fairness, desiring the benefits of human diversity (we can
learn a lot from each other) and a tolerance of views with which I disagree. I
believe that virtue is its own reward. I entertained being an artist, I chose
science instead. I was an elevator
operator for three summers in my youth and learned a lot about the importance
of labor unions, the hard life of low paid unskilled labor, and the dignity of
work. I grew up with a schizophrenic
mother and learned that she could be loving and caring despite her paranoid
moments. I grew up with two cultures. My father shared memories of his Swedish boyhood,
his lapsed Lutheran faith, and his work in the merchant marine before he became
an elevator operator. I learned to appreciate
his loyalty and his joy in listening to music and reading widely. My mother grew up in New Jersey with
immigrant Orthodox Jewish parents from what is now Ukraine and she played her
violin at home and liked to paint in the style we call primitive art. Although both would be judged failures by
slipping from middle class to poverty, both were successful in stressing for
their children the importance and pleasures of culture and education. I have
had the good fortune of enjoying most of my life and learned early to turn
discontent into acts of creativity and learning.
No comments:
Post a Comment