“The first time I met him was in his office when he was interviewing me before he decided whether and who he was accepting. I jokingly mentioned that my grandmother had doubts about my missing a semester of school. He immediately pounced on my remark, and peppered me with numerous questions – who was my grandmother, what was her background, why did she have these doubts, how did I feel about these concerns, what would I do “at school?” It was off the chart in terms that it wasn’t like anything else that had been done at Williams and I don’t know that I had really that much idea about it before I even applied or even after he said “yes” and then I said “yes.”

–Jeff Thaler '74