Here was another rule: you kept your ego outside. This was a place where we would be brutally honest with each other but we wouldn’t be unkind. We wouldn’t be inhumane. The classroom was a special place. We had to work hard. He thought learning changed you. It wasn’t what you memorized. It wasn’t the […]

I have heard it said, by people who would know, that Williams has had no class to equal the class of ’60, before or since.

“Don, where did you come from?” “Tell me about your brother.” “Tell me about your sister.” “How was your father educated? “ “What’s your mother’s family like?” “Are your people close to each other? “ “What’s your economic outlook on life?” This was the mosaic that he would put together of you as his student. […]

Fall semester of my junior year, in the middle of all this chaos, he gave a lecture on courtesies, manners, why they were important and what that had to do with the notion of authority. I’ll never forget it. The place was packed. I remember saying, “Courtesy, what is this, a finishing school?” And yet […]