by Char Miller
Professor of History
I’m no Mr. Chips. But like the fictional English schoolmaster I can be dazzlingly naive. Take my once-unquestioned faith that central to my classes is the dialogue with students about the key intellectual debates emerging out of our studies of U. S. cultural, environmental, or urban history. No, really, that’s what I thought.
Until Lynn Betlock ‘89 shattered my precious illusion. We reconnected in October at a Trinity alumni gathering in Boston, and when I arrived she pulled me aside to offer up an earthshaking confession: she had not paid much attention during the first weeks of my City in History class because, well, there was this really hot guy seated nearby. That the pair is now happily married, and that Lynn is a gainfully employed historian, should be, I suppose, partial compensation for my loss of innocence--yet who knew that classrooms doubled as hook-up zones?
Other engaging moments have cropped up over the past nine months as I have traveled the country on a full-year academic leave. My day-job has been speaking on the history of the U. S. Forest Service, which manages our national forests and grasslands, and about which I have written extensively; 2005 marks its centennial, and to date my road tour has taken me to12 states and the District of Columbia, where I have delivered over 25 talks. By night, and where possible, I have had the good fortune to meet with Trinity alums in such disparate places as Anchorage and Juneau, San Diego, Boston, and the nation’s capital; this spring more are scheduled, in Chicago, Houston, Fort Worth, and (Boise, anyone?)
At each, I’ve addressed an array of topics from booming admissions to campus renovations, curriculum changes to new faculty, the reinvention of KRTU and its partnership in innovative jazz series with Trinity and the Carver Center to the revival of the Trinity University Press, which has already had a profound impact on intellectual culture in San Antonio (and well beyond).
In the give-and-take that follows, those gathered respond in ways that reflect their appreciative feel for their alma mater. Rudi Sanger’59, who migrated to the United States, joined the military, and exited with a GED, was unprepared for Trinity’s academic demands. Yet he graduated, he told a crowd in D. C., in good measure because of his teachers’ perseverance and guidance, their care for him as a human being. This tradition of intense mentoring is felt across the generations--at every stop I have been asked about former advisors and teachers who have had a transformative influence on so many young lives; but before professorial egos inflate over much, it is important to note that in the same breath our former charges pepper me with queries about old haunts, Taco Flats (now gone) and Taco Cabana (with us still). Dear colleagues, we’re right up there with a sizzling plate of flame-grilled fajitas and a cold bottle of beer.
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That’s what had the crew in Anchorage salivating (apparently, the far-north city is not known for its Tex-Mex cuisine). And it was the memory of cozy, late-night study breaks at the San Pedro T. C. that flavored their discussions with a group of admitted students and their families, also in attendance. Their nostalgia ran as thick as mole, but they used their fond recollections as a way to convey to parents, worried about the prospect of their kids going to school more than 3100 miles to the south, that all would be well. By the end of the evening, I was as hungry as I was convinced.
Reinforced too has been my conviction about the depth of our former students’ engagement with the community they left behind. They ask pointed questions about diversity among faculty and students (recent headway only suggests how much more needs to be done); worry about the new role of athletics on campus life (Trinity, a powerhouse?); and from their experiences in a fluid workplace and mercurial job market, urge a greater emphasis on interdisciplinary study (so are cheered to learn of plans for cross-disciplinary programs in bio-chemistry and entrepreneurial leadership, among others).
Without doubt, I gain a good deal more from these evenings’ ferment than I give. Like a scrivener, I bear away from these brief encounters a scrap-book full of clippings about joyous life-cycle ceremonies, tales of loss, grief and death, news of jobs dangerous (the Secret Service) and exacting (high-school teaching) and fun (tennis coach). Those who attend, admittedly a self-selective group, seem happy with who they are, what they have become, even where they live.
None more so than Kris Garot ‘97. We had talked the week before she had graduated, and during our conversation she had made it clear that after four years in hot-humid San Antonio she could not wait to teach somewhere, anywhere that was “colder, darker, and wetter.” I was skeptical, having fled northern snow and ice for south Texas’ enveloping warmth, but this wasn’t the first time my intuition proved suspect, not the first time a student knew better than I what she was about: Kris is now living out her dream amid the verdant, temperate rainforests of southeastern Alaska.
Char Miller is a professor of history and director of urban studies; his most recent book is Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in South Texas (Trinity University Press).
