Graduation was great. Having Mother and Dad there
from Texas was greater. Having Jane accept my engagement ring was the greatest.
And 4 days later I began the next chapter; graduate school. Graduate school had
always been on my long-range plan but I had no idea as to when I would start
that. Dean of Students Huegli had other ideas. In my college senior year I
was student body president and Dean Huegli and I met for a full hour every
day Monday through Friday. Shortly before graduation he told me “You
are going to grad school and you will start this summer.” He received his Ph.D.
from Northwestern U. and that is where he wanted me to go. So I followed his
orders and applied. It seemed like I had a somewhat reserved response from
Northwestern. Then suddenly I received new communications not only
welcoming me, but urging me to come. Apparently Dean Huegli had made some
contact.
When I told him I had no financial resources he
again stepped up. He arranged for me to live on campus at Concordia (at no cost)
and work on campus facilities upkeep during the summer. When I needed course
fees I approached my cousin Ben Jacob. He came through (all be it reluctantly)
and loaned me $100.00.00 with me paying him back $10.00 a month for 12 months.
I figured that was a pretty high interest rate but I paid that and Ben accepted
the full $120.00. In fact I paid it off ahead of tim out of my $180.00
month salary.
I studied psychology and had excellent courses. Two
were outstanding. One was called Human Personality and I remember
getting certified to administer and interpret the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory. Another course was Diagnosing and Treating Mental
Disorders. Tough and very good. One important lesson I learned: Work very
carefully and long on the symptoms and only then make a diagnosis.
A couple of minor aspect of life during those
summer months: The first was that I had a very enjoyable time playing summer
softball. The quality of pitching in the games was very low and at the end of
the summer I was informed that I had won the batting title with an average of
well over 400. (As I said, the level of pitching was very low.) The other
incidental has to do with one of the two gentlemen with whom I shared rides to
and from the university. That friend’s name was Don Dinkmeyer who was
working on his doctorate in psychology. Twenty-five years later we
“met” again under some stressful circumstances. He had developed and was
aggressively marketing a parent-training program and called it Systematic Training
for Effective Parenting (STEP). It was based very heavily on the PET skills. In
fact it had so many almost exact concepts, words and steps as PET (I was
then working with PET) that we seriously considered legally charging him for
plagiarism and copyright infringement. Eventually we decided against that
and I am glad we never had to jointly appear in court.
Summer was soon over and I needed to get to Tracy,
California to begin my teaching ministry, the next phase of my long and blessed
life.
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