Lately I get congratulated everywhere I go. Cashiers at restaurants and retail stores, the parents of my closest friends and even the nurses at Health Services give me a pat on the back and wish me luck. I didn’t know completing my undergraduate degree at Binghamton University warranted such praise, but hey, I’ll take it from these people — especially since it seems no employers want to extend such commendation.
As an English major I got to know a group of professors fairly well, mainly due to the enthusiasm they exhibited in the classroom and their willingness to actually speak to students outside of it. If it weren’t for these teachers, the English department would be as lifeless as my fish after I went away for a week.
Many of my fellow graduates are saying they learned nothing in class, except how to manipulate margins to get two extra pages for that paper due, or how to craft a believable excuse as to why that very paper is two weeks late. While it’s probably true that I learned more on State Street (Jager bombs are never a good idea) than inside the cement walls of BU’s academic buildings, I did pick up a few things from professors who still know how to infuse into their classes their passion for the literature they teach.
Ryan Vaughan showed us (literally) that not all English professors come in the same size, shape, weight, hairstyle or even in pants √É¢’ and that poop jokes have their place in papers, too. Mary Haupt inspired us to keep journalism alive even if it’s on life support right now, and gave us the skills necessary to perform CPR on this suffering industry.
Richard Pindell brought characters to life before our very eyes, and warned us of becoming too jaded with the world. He showed by example how you can fall in love with fictional characters more easily (sometimes more deeply) than you can with real people.
Praseeda Gopinath encouraged us to disagree with, and even vehemently hate, theorists whose ideas seem more suited for other universes than classrooms, while Gayle Whittier taught us that Billy Shakespeare enjoys sexual innuendos just as much as horny college kids or Judd Apatow.
Now that I’m days, hours, seconds away from shaking hands with Lois B. and shaking a leg to get out of this town, I can appreciate my time here, and the people who made it worthwhile. So, I’d like to thank the men and women of this University that encourage all us hopeless romantics, whimsical writers and hard-nosed reporters that comprise the English department. You’ve made us all worthy of praise.