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Dean Adams Remembers

Remarkable Teachers and Students
I Have Known at Harvard Extension School

On his last full day of service to Harvard Extension School in June, amid the packing boxes and fond farewells, Dean Adams took a few moments to recall some of the remarkable personalities he has known during his 33 years at the University. Asked to reminisce about his own achievements--not least, his active role in guiding the Harvard Extension Alumni Association (HEAA)--Dean Adams offered a few comments on his early years, then turned with characteristic modesty to discuss the place of others in the proud history of Extension.

When I came to the Extension School in 1965, the entire staff consisted of Dean Reginald Phelps (who served as part-time director), a full-time office manager, and three or four retired Harvard employees who worked, as I, as casual staff. My first job was to type class lists and course examinations, mail catalogues in the summer and fall, and deposit tuition money in the bank. In the 1970s my responsibilities were expanded to include assigning classrooms, recruiting faculty, devising a course-numbering system, and preparing course descriptions for the catalogue. One of the most interesting assignments in the early years was teaching American National Government on US Navy ships in New London, Connecticut, and Newport, Rhode Island, for the PACE (Program for Afloat College Education) program. But my most satisfying assignment has been the Alumni Association. I have attended every HEAA banquet and most HEAA social gatherings since 1966.

Dean John Adams chatted with Edgar Grossman, founder and first president of the Harvard Extension Alumni Association, at the 1992 Alumni Banquet.

Over the years at the Extension School, I worked in registration, admissions, counseling, advising, student services, teaching, and alumni relations and had the good fortune to work with many members of the faculty and student body whom I greatly admire and respect, and who stand out in my memory.

One such individual was the late Professor Frank M. Carpenter. Professor Carpenter taught Introductory Biology in the Extension School for many years. In fact, he holds the record for the longest tenure of Extension teaching. He truly loved our program and his students. He told the story of the Saturday morning when a great snowstorm blanketed New England, and when most instructors and students--classes were taught six days a week then--welcomed the inevitability of a "snow day." But not Frank Carpenter. He looked out of his Cambridge home at the driving snow and knew that one of his students would be walking through the blizzard from Roxbury to attend his class, and that he had better be there when she arrived. This student was Annamae Crite, who had been taking courses at Extension since 1910, the year after we began. So Professor Carpenter put on his boots and set out for the bio labs, where, as anticipated, only one student appeared--Annamae Crite, our alumnus Allan Crite's mother.

Another story goes back to the Carpenter years, when a very young assistant professor of biology, Ken Boss, had to step in at the last moment to teach one of Frank Carpenter's classes. The next day he walked into Professor Carpenter's office and said, "Frank, when you retire, I'm taking over that class. I'm taking over your course. You must guarantee that I will follow you at Extension when you retire. At your lecture last night all the students asked questions. They didn't just sit there and take notes. They raised their hands. They talked to me. I was there till 10:30 last night answering questions! It was wonderful!"

Then there was Professor B. J. Whiting, the great Chaucer scholar at Harvard. For 40 years, his Canterbury Tales course, English 115, was required for English concentrators in the College and rose like a great wall that everybody had to scale sophomore year to earn the right to go on to study English literature. For years Dean Phelps tried to get Professor Whiting to teach the course for Extension students, and for years Whiting refused. Finally he gave in, but on two conditions: "It's got to be my usual room in Sever Hall, and it's got to be at 4 pm so I can be home by dinnertime." Dean Phelps agreed.

And on the first afternoon, the room was full of eager Extension School students. Professor Whiting began his lecture by describing Canterbury and how, today, there is a statue of Chaucer on a certain street corner. Suddenly a hand went up in the front row, and a man said, "Professor, you are wrong." The student turned out to be an airline pilot who had been in Canterbury just the week before and found the statue had been moved because the road was widened. Whiting was taken aback. He had never been challenged in class before. "I stand corrected," he said in amazement, and continued his lecture.

Years later Professor Whiting spoke of his Extension School experience. "Now before every lecture I check every fact. Every fact. For after that day, I had to redo all my lectures, because there were Extension students who had traveled and read widely in every field. I ran into Dean Phelps one day. 'Reg,' I said, 'do you know, I have three Wellesley Phi Beta Kappas in my class? They're all there willingly! My course isn't required at Extension, but it's standing room only!'"

Some of the students I have met over the years are as memorable as Harvard's most illustrious professors. One is Kimberley Cupp-Moreno, who earned her bachelor's degree at Extension in 1988. She was the manager of a Burger King in Somerville, but she also worked several other jobs to make ends meet. She had to go to New York City many weekends her final year to take care of her grandmother, who suffered from Alzheimer's. That was tough. Like so many other Extension students, Kimberley never stood still. When she wasn't doing assignments for class, she was rushing off to work, or driving to New York--but always with a joyful spirit, as if this period were the happiest time of her life.

Kimberley was so outstanding a student that she entered Yale Law School after Harvard Extension. She graduated from Yale with high law review honors, took a position with a major New York City law firm to pay off her student loans, and then began practicing human service law in the nonprofit sector. While volunteering with Hispanic patients in a New York hospital, she remembered her love of chemistry and biology courses at the Extension School--and came to a firm conclusion. "I can't stop my education until I have completed medical school and can help others as a physician." Now that she has been admitted to the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey, she surely will become the first Harvard Extension alumna with both law and medical degrees to her credit.

With student and faculty colleagues such as these, the years at Harvard Extension School went by very fast. Every day brought new surprises. I always enjoyed receiving notes from alumni telling us what they were doing--a new job, travels to faraway places, even the birth of a grandchild. Now that our certificate programs are a magnet for international students, we also hear news from many foreign countries.

But some of the old student patterns survive. I know of a few couples, long retired, who come in each week early for supper in the Square, then go to class together--usually a fine arts, history, or literature course. They take the course for noncredit and they enjoy it immensely. This is part of the spirit of the Harvard Extension School, and I will miss it.

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