Interview with Fred Neil Peck

Interview with Fred Neil Peck

Peck, Fred Neil ; Gashurov, Irene

Nineteen sixties; Harpur College; Alumni and alumnae

Fred Neil Peck of Long Island graduated from Harbor College in 1966 with a degree in biology, where he was actively involved in athletics and fraternity life. He later earned a master’s degree from SUNY Albany and a PhD in economics from NYU, reflecting a shift in his academic focus from the sciences to economics. Peck began his career at First Boston Corporation, where he provided economic forecasting and client services. He later transitioned into education, teaching at Hofstra University before moving into the New York City public school system, where he worked in Special Education Administration. He is married, has three sons, and resides in the New York City area.

2018-12-21

In Copyright

Fred Peck, PhD.mp3

2019-01-17

Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni

142:03 minutes

Alumni Interviews
Interview with: Fred Neil Peck
Interviewed by: Irene Gashurov
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 21 December 2018
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(Start of Interview)

IG: 00:01
Okay, we are on.

FP: 00:03
Good morning. I am Fred Peck. I graduated from Harpur College in 1966. Uh, and I am sitting here with Irene Gashurov at the SUNY Global Center at 116 East 55th Street, Manhattan. I do not get into Manhattan quite as often as I used to. I spent 40 years commuting daily into Manhattan, and this is the first time in months that I have dealt with traffic on the FDR Drive. In any case, we are here to talk about my experience in the 1960s.

IG: 00:49
Very good, very good. Thank you for that introduction. So let us begin with the beginning. And so, where did you grow up?

FP: 00:58
Well, the beginning for me was the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. My family lived in by that time, already, century old, four story or five-story walk-up on Sterling Place near Howard Avenue in Brooklyn. But shortly thereafter, we moved into brand new, a brand-new home, a brand-new apartment building in Canarsie, where we lived for a few short years before moving to Long Island. So, I moved to Long Island at the age of seven. I have some memories of life from Brooklyn, but for the most part, I consider myself a Long Islander. I grew up from second grade through high school on Long Island, and my family lived there-

IG: 01:56
Where?

FP: 01:56
-many, many years in Hicksville, Hicksville, and today, I still have one sister. I have four sisters and a brother. One of my sisters still lives on Long Island. Another lives in Brooklyn. The rest of my family is scattered all over the country. I have a sister in Florida, a sister in California. My brother lives up in Massachusetts, but I remain a New Yorker, and I live in Rockland County, where I raised my family and commuted, as I say, into Manhattan for 40 years, for a couple of couple of Manhattan based careers. But I am a Long Islander. I grew up in Long Island. That is that, that is, that is.

IG: 02:39
So, tell me a little bit about your family. Were your family? Who were they? What did they do?

FP: 02:46
Well, my father was a small businessman. He was a butcher and owned a meat market, originally in Jackson Heights, Queens and-and then sold that business. And because he wanted to move to Long Island with his family, so he bought a shop in Massapequa, Massapequa Park. And throughout, you know, my-my youth, and right through college, graduate school, and what have you, he owned and ran that butcher shop. So, my brother and I go around telling people we were sobs, sons of butchers. In any case, yeah, we my family grew up, as I say, around that small business environment. It never occurred to me at the time, although I ultimately came to appreciate it that despite all of the aspects of running a small business successfully, that many people about which many people may be very unfamiliar, because you have got to do your own accounting, your own planning, your own marketing, and what have you. So, there is a lot that goes into it, besides the specifics of the skill of being a meat cutter, but he ran a successful business. But the key for me, that I discovered later on in life, was that his store, his business, was 15 minutes from his house. And my entire professional life, I never spent less than an hour and a half or so each way to and from work. I- so I came to really appreciate the fact that he wanted that he purchased the business close to where he wanted to live. But what that really meant, of course, was that when he left the house in the morning, we were already getting up and going to school, so we saw him in the morning. It meant that we had dinners together. He was always there in the evening. Uh so-so it really gave him a lot of time with his family. Now, my-my mother, my ours, is a sort of blended family. So, my mother passed away at a relatively young age. She was 41 years of age at that time, I had a brother and a sister. My father remarried and-and he and his wife had three additional daughters. So that is how I got three additional sisters. So a total of four sisters and a brother, um and-

IG: 05:39
So, four sisters and one brother. That is the entire family.

FP: 05:42
That is the entire family. The original family for me was my brother and sister, and then when he remarried, they had three additional sisters. Three half-sisters.

IG: 05:53
What was the expectation in your family about education and higher education?

FP: 05:57
Well, from a very early age, my mother, before she passed away, was very concerned about education. She herself had after-after graduating high school had gone on to, I guess, what you would have called Business College in those days, really secretarial and bookkeeping school. My father, on the other hand, kept in mind this was he was he matured in the 30s, depression, hard times. He left high school in order to get a job, in order to help support a family at a time when things were difficult, and there was an opportunity for him--take it or leave it. He was 16 years old. High school is high school. I can always go back to it. He never did my he was a bright fellow, but, but he never went back to finish high school. So, nevertheless, both he and my mother and my stepmother had expectations that all of their children would go to college and pursue education as a goal unto itself, as far as their interests and abilities would take them. So, I was we were never- the only pressure on us was you were in school--you might as well study and learn as much as you can and do as well as you can. But beyond that, there was never any pressure. Why are you still in graduate school? What is a PhD going to do for you? And why do not you go get a job that never entered the conversation? They were very-very supportive throughout now, as it turns out, and I am not sure specifically about each one of my siblings, but I know that my brother and I both went through school and graduate school with very little out-of-pocket expense. We all had scholarships and then later fellowships and that sort of thing. So, we were relatively fortunate. I think my parents did pay considerable sums for some of my sisters, but I do not think that was any lack of intelligence on their part. There was a there is a fairly wide spread in age, and by the mid (19)60s, funding for things like scholarships and what have you, became increasingly stingy, increasingly difficult to come by.

IG: 08:46
Even in the (19)60s.

FP: 08:48
Sure, by the late 60s, I mean, my brother and I both had region, New York Region scholarships as long as we went to a school within New York State, our tuition was paid for, period in those days. I mean, Harpur College tuition was, my memory serves, something on the order of $300 a year. And my-my Regent scholarship would have paid up to $750 a year for tuition, which would have been, you know, half the cost of Columbia University, for example. I mean, that is, and by the late (19)60s that started to wind down, or the eligibility became more difficult. I mean, there was a separate region scholarship examination at that time, and then later on, they switched to looking at the SATs, but-but getting funding to go to school for us turned out not to be an issue. Or my parents were not wealthy, but they would have funded our education. But turns out, it was not really necessary. I mean, room and board, if I am not mistaken, was around $500 a year. For a full 21 meal plan, 21 meals a week with a meal plan plus your room. So, my summers spent at a boy’s camp as a counselor paid for my room and board for the year. So-so the financial aspects of going to college did not in those days impose a burden, a significant burden on our family. We did not come out of school heavily in debt. Compare that to what goes on today. That was not, that was not the major criteria. The major criteria for whether you went to college in those days was whether you felt the desire to continue in school after high school, and whether it made sense to you from a career perspective, versus going to work when I graduated high school, went to work at Grumman Aircraft. I mean, there were manufacturing jobs, industries that were paying wonderful middle-class salaries, and you did not need a college degree. So.

IG: 11:08
Let us just backtrack to you know, so why did you decide on Harpur College rather than a local-

FP: 11:15
Okay. A lot of first of all, growing up on Long Island, the main local school was Hofstra University, Hofstra University private school. But at that time, it was a commuter school. There were no dorms [inaudible]

IG: 11:30
What about Stony Brook?

FP: 11:32
Well, Stony Brook was brand new. Stony Brook was maybe in 1963 when I when I went off to Binghamton, Stony Brook was an option, and many of my friends did opt that way. The major thing for me was too darn close to home. [laughs] I wanted to go further away. I knew I had to stay in New York State because I had my tuition paid for. But-but Stony Brook was just too close. I wanted to be off Long Island. I wanted to be far enough away that in an emergency, I could hop on a bus and get home. All my parents could get up to me, hopping in the car and 4.3,4, hours, but not 25 minutes away or half an hour away, that was, that is just too close.

IG: 12:23
Too close. So-so you decided on Harpur College. Did you think of other-

FP: 12:27
Yes. Well, in those days, I have three sons, so I went through this college application process with them, and it is conceivable my memory deceives me, but going through the process with them, I thought back to what it was like when I applied. And for them, they applied to dozens of schools. You know, they had a couple of areas of interest, and they looked into several schools that offered opportunities when I was in high school, my-my guidance counselor, first of all, again, my parents had no real experience with college, so they left it pretty much up to whatever the guidance counselor advised us. In those days, the standard recommendation was you pick a school in which you have an interest based on their programming and their location and what have you that may just be out of reach in terms of your academic standing, you may have a chance, but you reach for this guy, pick the school you would most likely choose to go to and then pick a safe school, because you want to be in school. You want to make sure you are going to be accepted. So that was the advice. So, I applied to three schools.

IG: 13:51
Which were they?

FP: 13:52
Well, now I applied to Queens College, which was half an hour in the other direction, but I had relatives living in Queens. I easily established New York City resident. It would have been a commuter school and but I could have established New York City residents would have, which would have meant that tuition was free in any case, so my reach of scholarship would have been irrelevant. I would have been living at home, but based on their admissions standards. It was a shoe, and it was a safe school for me. When I graduated high school, I finished well, top-top 5 percent of the class, not as big a deal as I said in those days. It was not that important to focus on your academics. I mean, we had a third of our class were in vocational programs in high school. So, a different time.

IG: 14:47
Also, Hicksville was a different kind of place, right? It was-

FP: 14:50
Hicksville is a blue-collar, middle blue-collar to middle class range, not a particularly wealthy community. Good school-school district, but not-not-not Scarsdale. So, but for me, getting into Queens College was a breeze. Columbia University would have been the reach. And because I wanted to, you know, picked an ivy and where was I going to go to New Jersey, go to Princeton, go-go-go to Connecticut and go to Yale, Rhode Island, go to Brown, New Hampshire, go to Dartmouth, Harvard, Boston. And then it would become expensive, and then it would have been a financial burden on my parents. So, Columbia was my reach school, you might say. And in doing some research, Harpur College, there was no Binghamton University. There was no university SUNY Binghamton, Harpur College happened to be located in the City of Binghamton. Well, actually Vestal. But they were going to experiment. Number one, it had a reputation as being a challenging school. My teachers might remember an AP Bio, my teacher said to me, "You know, if you go to Harpur, you are going to work harder than you then you will if you go to Columbia." That is what he said.

IG: 14:51
Really?

FP: 15:36
So, and being the competitive sort that I am, that immediately intrigued me. Number one. Number two, it would have cost my parents nothing between-between my personal savings, my summer work, and my scholarship; I was going to go to school for nothing. Colombia would have been expensive. And most especially, I selected it over a variety of schools, both State University and other upstate schools, because I was look- it is amazing why the letter H pops up. But I was looking at Hamilton, I was looking at Hobart. I was looking, you know, yeah, and Harpur-Harpur was going to start that summer with something called a trimester, so right after I graduated high school, I could immediately start college right after July 4.

IG: 15:39
I see, I see.

FP: 15:41
And not have to spend a summer at home. That appeals to me, get out of the house immediately. Remember it was, it was kind of crowded, and I was anxious to get it to get away. So, although the- for many trimesters was the only way they were going to get in, because in order to fill up three semesters and more fully utilize resources, it also meant quickly expanding the freshman class. So, standards were lowered somewhat. So, for many students, that might have been the only way they were going to get into Harpur.

IG: 17:58
But it is also quicker, right? You finish your degree?

FP: 18:01
Well, that depends on the student. You had the option of selecting two out of the three trimesters per year and take the full four years to finish your eight trimesters or eight semesters. I went straight through. I went straight through. I graduated in three years.

IG: 18:18
Yeah.

FP: 18:19
I graduated in three years I went straight through that is because I was having too much fun.

IG: 18:26
So, what were your first impressions?

FP: 18:30
Well, Harpur College is a relatively small school.

IG: 18:32
Yes.

FP: 18:33
When I when I got to Harpur, there were 400 students in the total freshman class of all three semesters, it was total fresh. There was a total undergraduate student body of 1600 students. There were 200 graduate students. That was the entire campus--other than the the-the gym, now the East gym, but at the time it was the gym and Newing dining hall, the old Newing dining hall, and, of course, the service buildings.

IG: 19:09
Where do you mean the service building?

FP: 19:10
Oh, there was a steam generator and what have you. Other than those, those were the only structures outside the brain, the entire school, all the dorms, all of the academic buildings, administration and the library, the Student Union, which in those times, at that time, was called the Student Center, was all contained within the brain. So, it was a compact school. It was a compact school, and it was a small school, so easy to get around, easy to know everybody, easy to be very involved in in school life that appealed to me greatly when I visited.

IG: 19:50
Did you have an idea of what you wanted to study?

FP: 19:53
Oh yes, that is the other thing about growing up in a family where you are the first generation to go to college is that there are no there are some preconceived notions, but they are rather silly--born of just simply not knowing. So, from my father's perspective, it is wonderful that you are going to college, you are going to be a physician.

IG: 20:15
Right. Of course.

FP: 20:16
Unless, of course, you cannot cut it. We know that that happens, in which case you will end up being a dentist. It is also the case that once you get into college, even though you were interested in the sciences in high school, it is possible that when you go to college, you may find yourself drifting off to the social sciences. So, you become an attorney. And again, if you cannot get options, you cannot. Well, if you cannot get into law school, you end up becoming an accountant, and we will forgive you, right? That is it, that is it, that is it. So-so, the world opens up when you particularly in a liberal arts framework, the whole world of opportunities that you did not even know existed opens up- Harpur College. Remember the 1960s was a decade of transition from what you might call old school technology in higher education to the new student driven programming. When I entered, there were rigid programmatic requirements. You were required to have a minor, which consisted of 12 credits or more in each of the major segments of the undergraduate program, Social Sciences, you had to have a minor in somewhere in the social sciences. In the humanities, you had to have a minor in the humanities, somewhere in the humanities and the natural sciences, you had to have a minor in the natural sciences, one of those would become your major. So, I mean, these were programmatic. Then on top of that, there were very specific course requirements for all incoming freshmen. Lit 101 and 102, Lit and Literature and Composition, 101, 102 required. Social studies, 101 was required. U, a 101, 102 two semester sequences in one of the natural sciences could have been biology, could have been chemistry, could have been physics could have been geology could have been psychology, because the psychology program at Harpur was experimental psychology, and it was in the science program. So those were requirements, and you got your when you entered, you got your course catalog, and you were told in the get go, this is the course catalog in which you are entering, your graduation requirements are from this catalog. There may be changes over the course of your time at Harpur in terms of requirements and what have you. You may opt for any newer set of requirements and or courses, but you will always be guaranteed that what you pick from this catalog will apply by the time you graduate.

IG: 23:25
And you understood all of that?

FP: 23:28
We received help in understanding it. Yes, our advisors were very clear this was important Harpur College graduate. The intention was that if you came to Harpur College, you were going to graduate from Harpur College. Harpur College. We do not, we do not do dropouts. That that would, that was, that was the message, it turns out, obviously, but, but the expectation was they were going to get you through, as long as you put in the effort you have been accepted, and as long as you put in the time and energy you are going to get through.

IG: 24:02
So, what you were some of the so what were some of the surprises to you from the courses that took and-

FP: 24:11
The biggest, the biggest surprise right off the bat, like after the first week-- again, I did very well in high school. I was top of my class very first week. Every single one of these people is just like me. They were all bright. They are all bright. The dumbest I could be the dumbest one in the class. Could be the smartest? There is not that much of a spread, or at least not noticeable. I mean, there were some brilliant people, but you would not necessarily notice it, because we were all bright. We all understood the teachers were saying. We were all able to read these classic texts and develop our skills at the exposition and the evaluation, to be sure, but-but it was, you know, it was mind blowing at the time to realize you were at the top of the class here in the middle at best. And as it turns out, I graduated near the bottom of my class. I graduated near the bottom of my class graduated on top, but out of, I think 404 students, or something like that, in my graduating class. You know, I may have been 50 from the bottom, 60 from the bottom, something like that.

IG: 25:37
That is No, you know, academic success is irrelevant.

FP: 25:41
It was irrelevant. It was irrelevant. The Graduate Schools loved it. Binghamton by the time I graduated, the school had such a reputation I had no problem getting to grad school.

IG: 25:50
So, what were some of the academic the intellectual surprises that maybe opened your thinking, opened your mind, you know, your perception of the world that you had not.

FP: 26:00
Well, let us put it this way, I entered as a biology major with the intention of going to medical school. I ended up graduating as a biology major simply because I had too many credits to walk away from it, but had a heavier than required minor in economics, and went to graduate school in economics, became an economist, never even heard of the study of economics. Never occurred to me that there was actually a theory to describe how markets, manual, produce and distribute and how and price theory and production theory, I mean, that never occurred to me. Sociology, I had heard of growing up in Samoa. I knew who Margaret Mead was when I was in high school, but I had never read it never occurred to me in a million years. It was actually an academic discipline of sociology, of studying the development and-and growth of societies and differences and what philosophy? What is philosophy? As I said, you had to have a minor in the humanities. For me, humanities, I mean, yeah, I understood taking Literature and Composition, yeah, I understood that I had to read these classic texts, okay, I had heard of Plato, so now I am reading the Republic, wonderful, yeah, okay, I knew that Socrates had, you know, had poisoned him the self under, you know, in lieu of public execution, Hemlock and-and now I am reading, you know, a third hand report of his teachings that, that sort of thing I, you know, and Dante. I mean, I guess I had heard of the Divine Comedy and what have you. But I high school. We did not, we did not read those texts.

IG: 28:01
And you found all of this very engrossing or? What did you-

FP: 28:06
I loved it. I was reading things that people have been reading for 1000 years, and suddenly it occurred to me, perhaps my 20th century perspective was going to glean from these texts something very different than someone than a Roman reading a Greek text.

IG: 28:30
Of course.

FP: 28:31
But I am reading in translation and later on, learning that those translation differences do make a difference. Nevertheless, I had my hand on history in a way that I did not even know existed or was possible. I-I was not a very worldly high school at the time. [crosstalk] So-so that philosophy, well, I will admit that you had to take a philosophy class, and I cheated as a science major. I took logic. Logic is mathematics, but itis philosophy, and so I avoided some of the more challenging philosophical classes, you know, I took Intro, I mean, I read, particularly in the Age of Enlightenment, Hume, Lock and Mills and what have you. By the way, that was what really got me into economics. It was, I did take Intro to economics, Paul Samuelson's text was the was the basis for that, for that class, but I never would have occurred to me to ultimately build a career around the study of economics until I did that intro philosophy class which I read those-those texts.

IG: 30:03
And what were the ideas, the seminal ideas that opened up this field for you, what did you find so entrancing? Do you remember?

FP: 30:17
For me, it was not about studying economics per se. Was not about studying markets. Was not specifically about studying theories of production or distribution. It was an approach or a discipline, to the study of human beings, to the study of humanity a particular aspect of their behavior. And you know, as a scientist, primarily, my way of thinking really required me to look at things which normally do not fall under the realm of the sciences per se, but with a scientific, disciplined approach, and economics provided that vehicle for me to study populations, to study people. A sociologists, core of you know what it is that they are studying the-the object of their study, but from a from a different approach, different set of tools to study the same behavior and characteristics of people, because I suddenly realized that I wanted to know more about what makes me think, about what makes the world think, about why life in one country is different than in another, one era in time is different than another, and there are a lot of things that account for those differences, but studying different time periods, different nations, different populations through the lens of economics provided one perspective that appealed to me and helped to explain for me why things happen the way they do, and how history unfolded the way it did, and-

IG: 32:13
It is a framework from which to see the world.

FP: 32:17
Yes.

IG: 32:17
-see certain phenomena.

FP: 32:18
That is exactly that, and that is what intrigued me, that is what led me on to them, and that all worked wonderfully right through the completion of my graduate studies, right until I started-

IG: 32:29
[inaudible] to excuse me.

FP: 32:30
Of course, graduation, I had to redesign my program to accommodate this new found desire, this new found course of study that was not really going to fit in with my major and still make sure I had enough time to finish up all of the requirements that I needed in my major. So that became a little bit tricky. I ended up graduating with about eight credits more than was required for graduation, just to make sure that I had enough in my major as well as fulfill my interests. And that was the other thing that was wonderful about going to a state university at the time and again. I do not really know what it is like today, but at the time you paid your tuition, you were required to take, to be a full-time student a minimum of 12 credits a semester. The recommended number was 16 credits a semester. But with your, with your advisor's permission, you could take as many as 20 credits in a semester. 18 was not unusual for a science major, because there were a lot of two credit lab classes that you could add on and amend to append to a four-credit science class. Science classes tended to be four credits. Fact, I think most classes were four credits. They were very intense. They were very long, and they met at least three times a week. So it was, it was pretty pretty-pretty intense academic preparation for whatever you chose to do when you when you graduated from Harpur College, I felt that when I graduated from Harpur College, and I believe this is true of everyone I knew, you were well grounded in the world of scholarship in the world of academia.

IG: 34:48
{phone rings] I am listed as a pizza shop cross-listed it as a Domino's Pizza. So-

FP: 35:04
[laughs] That is a funny story there that I am going to interject right now, since you, since you raised it, my-my first post postdoctoral-

IG: 35:22
Where did you go for-

FP: 35:23
NYU-NYU and I worked a-

IG: 35:27
Very good economics program.

FP: 35:29
Well, it was at the GBA at the Graduate School of Business Administration, now called the Stern-Stern School. And-and then I, and I was working at-at the First Boston Corporation investment banking firm. It is now Credit Suisse, First Boston and-and I had an office telephone. I do not recall precisely the number, but the area code was 212, and then the number. The number was the admissions department for UCLA, but there it is area code, 202 not 212, so here in one small digit in the area code, in the middle between twos, I got a lot of calls from prospective students asking to have application materials and catalogs and what have you sent to them?

IG: 36:29
You cannot be really rude.

FP: 36:30
[inaudible] Please-please redial. But this time you miss, dialed you. You dialed 212, New York City, please dial 202. [crosstalk] And whether it was students or their parents or their parents or guidance counselors, it really did not matter. I was not going to be rude. I thought it was humorous, and had my number change [crosstalk]. But so with regard to your Domino's story, in any case, yeah, everyone I knew, and I suspect to a certain extent, everyone who graduated in those days had a very well grounded, well-well informed base of-of academics that prepared them for professional school, graduate school, or any other continuation in formal learning, on the one hand, but on the other hand, despite the and we will get to this In a moment, because I know the really important part of this conversation is going to be about what life was like in the (19)60s, and in particular (19)60s at Harpur or on a college campus generally, but there was this overarching sense that the college stood in logo parentis, that is, they had a responsibility to guide us in much the same way our parents might. We really did not have quite as much independence as we thought we would, or that college students have today, and maybe more than there was more overt control over our daily lives and what have you. Then was even appropriate at the time and would certainly not fly today. And if anything, that would have been the one limiting factor on just how ready we were to enter the real world. Because once you step off into the real world, there is nobody looking out for you. Your decisions are yours. Nevertheless, the path on which all of that guidance placed you really did prepare you for the world. People could step out of school and they were ready to go to work. They-they had worked hard. You worked hard. You studied people-people. There were some dropouts, but there were also some transfers in. That is why the graduating class was the same size as the even a little bit larger than the entering freshman class, because we had transfers in as-as people moved out, or as people, people transferred, people dropped out, or they transferred to other schools. A good friend of mine after, after we completed freshman year, actually, I think it was three semesters, three trimesters. He decided he did not like being away from home. He was also a long Islander. He transferred back to Hofstra, which at time, at that time was a commuter school, because he wanted to be at home. He could not, he could not handle living away from-from home. It was a very personal thing. Everybody was a little bit different, but academically, I never regretted for a moment my-my liberal arts education number one, and the fact that I got it at Harpur College, so much so that I am intensely proud of the fact that my middle son is a legacy student. Followed in dad's footsteps, he-he has two degrees from Binghamton. He-he has a Bachelor of Arts in Physics from Harpur and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Watson. He also has a PhD from MIT, but it is just a statement about the quality of preparation. Students who graduate from Binghamton are ready to do anything that is that is my opinion.

IG: 40:32
Do you have any outstanding professors, or?

FP: 40:35
Yeah, there were, there were a few professor Battin, Biology stood out as being a fabulous professor. Professor Norcross, my Organic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry the brain for all bio for brain for all science majors who choose to take it. Norcross, great professor. I remember him. There were what is his name. I had a professor whose name escapes me now. I took physics with him in his first-year teaching at Binghamton at Harpur, my son, 40 years later, took physics with him in his last year before retirement.

IG: 41:30
Is not that nice? You truly do have a history.

FP: 41:32
So, that that was that that was astounding. And I with him, I took three semesters to two semesters physics, one and two, and then astronomy. I took astronomy with him as well. And of course, my-my fondest memories I mentioned earlier, I had too much fun. My fondest memories are down at the gym, my coaches, I-I was on I earn three-three letters at home soccer, swimming and track. Soccer coach Tim Shum, who I see every year at homecoming, and he and I worked jointly on recent fundraising campaign leading up to-to homecoming this fall, we did a major telephone marathon contacting former student athletes. But I have also become very close with Paul Marco, who's the current soccer coach, my swim coach, Dave Thomas, he retired many years ago, and my track coach, Stan Lyons, who left Binghamton to go to Butler. He passed away, but-but I remember them, of course, fondly and-and I did have some wonderful professors whose names have long since escaped me, or had a great German professor, oh, foreign language was required. I mean, it was just, it was a liberal arts education, and there were requirements. And so, I had to take two years, two semesters of German. His last name was Schmidt. I was not very good. I did not really have a good ear for foreign languages. I had to work very hard at it. He was a wonderful professor, and his approach to teaching introduction to German was, this is Goethe. You have to read Faust in German, and you will learn the German that is required by the syllabus from German literature, not from some grammar text.

IG: 43:43
So, did he teach you language through reading?

FP: 43:48
Through, primarily through reading. It was not a conversational class, so, but-but his approach, and there was grammar. I mean, we learned declinations and what have you I mean, we learned what you-you had to learn but-but his approach made it interesting. It was not just learning by road, it was learning by you want to know what happened next, you were going to have to translate it. So-so I remember him, and I had some wonderful teachers in all of the subjects that I had, and I had some professors, teachers who were less thrilling. Never had a bad teacher. Never had anybody I disliked. Even the administration and I had a personal relationship with s students, Stuart Gordon, who was the Dean of Students. And um, there was a small flooding incident in Champlain Hall, and I was an innocent bystander, but was a witness to how it all came about, and so I developed this relationship. I was in his office, along with a number of other students. We went through the whole judicial process, and I but even there, I mean, even Glen G. Bartle, they love students. They love being college administrators.

IG: 45:34
You knew Mr. Bartle? Dr. Bartle, yeah. What was he like?

FP: 45:38
Dr. Bartle, he was a geologist, number one. So, he was a scientist.

IG: 45:42
You know that the library is named after him.

FP: 45:43
Of course, I know that I was there when they built the tower.

IG: 45:47
So, what was he like? I idea that he was a real person. [crosstalk]

FP: 45:53
And, oh, he was more than just a real person. He was an academician of the first order. He had contacts, he was able to attract to this new State University, liberal arts college in the midst of a burgeoning state university system known for normal schools. I mean, these were teachers’ colleges all over the state, Oneonta, Fredonia and Geneseo and Brockport and Plattsburgh and Potsdam [inaudible] Harpur, and it is just one of those. Well, no, it is not one of those. And he made sure that the world came to know that, and he had a lot of contacts, and was able to attract some incredible talent to-to the school that you would not ordinarily expect.

IG: 46:41
I have heard, I have heard that Harpur College profited from the exodus of German scholars in the (19)30s.

FP: 46:52
Well-

IG: 46:52
{inaudible] one of these?

FP: 46:56
He certainly spoke with a German accent. So, he could have been but I do not know. I do not know. I will tell you that Glenn Bartle was a very strait-laced academician. So, in that one year, just before I arrived, I believe it was 1962 we did not have national fraternities that were not permitted on any of the state university campuses at that time. So, there were no Greek fraternities, but we did have local fraternities. We call them men social clubs, men's social clubs, women's social clubs. I was a member of ADPhi [Alpha Delta Phi] men's Social Club, and Marty Greenberg was also a member of ADPhi. He is a member of the Hall of Fame. Of course, a number of a number of our members, went on to academic success at Harpur, but he was a standout. And I believe Frank Pollard was the basketball coach, and Marty was on the team. I think it was 1962 I heard this story when I when I pledged the frat and-and they were supposed to go to a post season.

IG: 48:11
What does that mean?

FP: 48:13
The NCAA tournament after the season is over, the best teams in your division get invited to these post season tournaments. And Harpur College, I mean, this is big time basketball for a small-time college, and Glen Bartle refused to allow the team to go because it was finals week.

IG: 48:40
How did you feel about that?

FP: 48:41
I did not have feelings since I heard this third hand. I was not a student at the time. You would have to ask Marty Greenberg how he felt about it, but I happened to know him, and no, he did not think very highly of the decision and but it is more about Glenn Bartle than it is about the specifics of that incident, academics and an education and building the academic reputation of this institution was paramount. So, in any case, yeah, it was fitting when they built the tower that they ultimately at the time it was just called the faculty tower.

IG: 49:28
Was he approachable, Dr. Bartle?

FP: 49:33
That depends, that depends on some students. For some students, everybody is approachable? I could not give a darn who you are. I remember when Nelson Rockefeller was on campus, and I walked over and said, "Hey, Rocky." And I just-

FP: 49:47
Absolutely. The thing you have to realize when I went to college and period we are talking about now. The drinking age in New York State was 18. The voting age was 21 that, of course, got switched later on in the aftermath of Vietnam War, the complaints about these youngsters who are old enough to die for their country, but not old enough to vote. So, the voting age was dropped to 18. Meanwhile, most states have drinking ages of 21 New York, therefore attracted a lot of young people across the borders from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut. They would get drunk in New York and then drive home and get killed on the way. So ultimately, federal highway funds were threatened. Then New York raised the drinking age to 21 so today, the drinking age is 21 the voting age is 18. I will not address the drinking age question, but I will tell you that. I mean, I think itis valuable that 18-year-old have the vote. Unfortunately, it is not so valuable that they do not use it. So, there I
s a huge educational aspect there that needs to be to get younger.

IG: 49:48
Are you serious?

IG: 51:11
You were approached Nelson Rockefeller and called him, "Hey Rocky," that that tells me a lot about your personality.

FP: 51:18
Oh, I yeah, I am an extrovert and-and I and I am not star struck particularly well. I, first of all, I was admirer of people in power. I did not really know enough about the ins and outs at that time of New York State Government. Before I got my doctorate at NYU. I got a master's degree at Al- in Albany. I went to the Graduate School of Public Affairs, which is at the State University of New York at Albany. That was, that was my immediate move out of Binghamton. And when I was there in this, they did not have trimester two semesters. In fact, Binghamton dropped trimester right after I graduated as well. But while I was in Albany, I spent my summers working for the joint legislative committee on legislative fiscal analysis and review, which was, you know, at that time, the Alfred E Smith office building. And I worked directly for Perry Duryea, who was the long-time speaker of the New York State Assembly. He also happened to be the one who represented us on Long Island. Well, he was a Long Island representative. He was not the only one, but he was from Long Island. So that gave us a connection, you might say. So, I had already-

IG: 52:46
You had such great opportunities, you know, to have [crosstalk]

FP: 52:49
Anybody who came out of Harpur College in those days, if they chose to, would be given those opportunities on a silver platter. That was the reputation of the school. When my high school teacher said you were going to work harder at Harpur than you would at Columbia. A, it was true, from what I have heard. B, the rest of the world seems already, at that time, to become aware of the quality of the students that were coming out, and that these were students who were going to do well in whatever opportunities you give them. So yes, I had internships and that sort of thing. Then that other-other might have died for coming out of other schools, I do not know, but I was very fortunate. But having-

FP: 53:35
When did you do these internships? If you had [crosstalk]

FP: 53:41
I was in graduate school.

IG: 53:43
You were in graduate school. Right.

FP: 53:46
Yes.

IG: 53:46
I see. In Albany?

FP: 53:48
Yes.

IG: 53:49
These internships are in Albany.

FP: 53:51
Yes.

IG: 53:54
You mentioned, I just wanted to backtrack a little bit to your Harpur days. You mentioned that you know you were having too much fun

FP: 54:02
Yes.

IG: 54:03
So, tell me a little bit about that. Where would you go? Where-

FP: 54:06
First-first trimester allowed me to compete on three different athletic teams, because each one of them was confined to a particular trimester. So, we had a short soccer season that ended in November rather than December, because that was the start of the next trimester. The swimming season was only half of a trimester because the rest of the academic, academic world did not start the swim season until after the Christmas break. That was halfway through us our trimester already, but that is when swim season started, but it ended at the beginning of the spring trimester. Spring trimester was track season, and so I was able to participate in in three varsity teams. That is something that cannot be done today. Well, it is also the case that they were division three teams. I could not, I would not at my peak, I would never have made-made the first ring varsity of any of the Binghamton University teams today in Division one. These are fabulous athletes, but-but it created opportunities to travel to other schools. It did involve a lot of training and a lot of time down at the gym, and I made a lot of friends that way. And so that was one aspect of having too much fun. Another aspect of having too much fun revolved around the social club, local fraternity, whatever you want to call it. And there was Friday nights at Swats, the downtown Sullivan's tavern, or at or in those days on in Johnson City, I forget the name of the road, but it is where the mall is. At the end of the road, you go over the Fred C Johnson, Fred C Johnson, Fred Johnson. C Fred Johnson bridge in into Johnson City. And there used to be a traffic circle there and off. And the first exit was Riverside Drive heading into Binghamton. The second exit was Floral Avenue, and the third exit took you on what now it continues to be 201, whatever it is to the mall over there, yes, and that mall directly across the street from it, the Wegmans on the one side, on the other side, those motels and the Friendlies and what have you all of that was these large industrial buildings. When I was there huge industrial complex that was the Endicott Johnson shoe factory.

FP: 54:53
That is right, that is right, the famous Endicott Johnson shoe factory.

FP: 56:49
Yes. and right down the road, as you might imagine, from any factory, with a row of pubs and taverns, where at five o'clock whistle workers would come out, and that would be their stop before heading home. It was also a Friday night stop for fraternity.

IG: 57:07
How would you get there? By-

FP: 57:09
Well, what happened there are, there were no-no blue busses. That is the Binghamton blue busses that take you all over. Now that did not exist, but there were city busses. So, there was a bus to Johnson City, but it went up Floral Avenue and dropped you off at whatever that road is, which becomes oak that goes all the way into Binghamton. Yeah, Oak Street, whatever that street is that goes into being by the by the Truman gate. That is as far as the bus would take you. And you could take a bus into Binghamton. These were city busses. But I would say that out of the 20 or 30 guys who were in the club, there were probably five or six automobiles. So, if you were available, you would all pour-pour into those, and we would go. By the time I was a junior, I had a car as well. My father gave me an automobile, 1960 Plymouth, sport fury. I love that car. Why? Because it was the first my first car. Everybody loves their first car anyway. And Kenny Bloom had had a car. I remember one of my fraternity brothers and-and so we would go again, 18 years of age. Was the drinking age. It was a dry campus. There was a period of time. Shortly after I left Binghamton, I was in graduate school in Albany. And when I returned, there was a guest lecture that I came for. And we came down, Roy Harrod, Sir Roy Harrod was giving a lecture at Binghamton. And we drove down from Albany. Roy Harrod is a world famous he may be, not sure it could be a Nobel Prize winner, one of the early ones, or certainly should have been, but one of the most wide, highly the in the era of John Maynard Keynes and John Hicks, world famous economists, right up there with Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow and these guys, and-and he was giving a lecture and-and, so-so we came down to hear that lecture, and I and there was a rathskeller-ratskeller, that was serving beer on the campus, and, I think. And remember, the drinking age was still 18, so my dry campus was no longer dry. That I do not know how long that lasted, but-

IG: 59:53
That is one of the changes of the later (19)60s.

FP: 59:58
That-that would have been late (19)60s or early (19)70s. Yes, I would have been like 1968. (19)69 I am guessing.

IG: 1:00:08
So, did you see, you know, the climate change while you were well campus, and when you returned to there from-

FP: 1:00:19
The climate began to change- the first thing you need to know, if you walk around Binghamton University today, there is a lot of construction going on. When I arrived in July of 1963 there was a lot of construction going on from July of 1963 when I arrived, and I am told by those who preceded me, starting in 1959 when they first broke ground for the gym, to today. There has been a lot of construction.

FP: 1:00:43
Eternal construction.

FP: 1:00:57
Forever.

IG: 1:00:58
Yes, it is like, it is what they say about St John the Divine, the cathedral on the Upper West Side, that it is, it is, you know, eternal, in an eternal state of construction. So is Harpur-

FP: 1:01:13
Absolutely-absolutely.

IG: 1:01:15
Binghamton campus.

FP: 1:01:15
Yes. So, I am going to tell you a few of the things that have changed dramatically that actually influenced the way we lived at the time versus today, and contributed to some of the traditions. But it was a dry it was a dry campus at that time, and we all lived in a small group of about and it was eight dormitories in total, four men and four women. Women had a curfew.

IG: 1:01:51
That is right, that is right.

FP: 1:01:53
Women had a curfew, if I am not mistaken, it was 10 o'clock during the week and Friday and Saturday nights, midnight. And there was a card system. You checked in with your cards, and you checked out, and you move your card from the inbox to the outbox. And any, anybody, any visitors, male visitors, picking you up for a date or what have you would have to check in at the front desk, and then they would check the card to make sure you were there. Then they would call the young lady down, and you had to have her back in time to move her card from the outbox back to the inbox. And what have you did?

IG: 1:02:34
Did male students have the same restrictions?

FP: 1:02:36
No. There were no restrictions. You came and went as you wished. That is exactly right. So that is and we did have on Sunday afternoons open dorm visitation, three feet on the floor.

IG: 1:03:02
I have heard about that.

FP: 1:03:06
So, the and doors open, obviously. And we did not have suites, though. These were all dorm style hall and nothing co-ed. But when I arrived, the first of the dormitory buildings outside of the brain were under construction, and Bingham and Endicott Hall, which surrounded New England dining hall, were the first dorms open, and I was among the first group of students to move across the brain into Bingham Hall. So I was that very first resident in Bingham Hall. But think about for a moment. You know, 1600 students on campus. Maybe 150 or 200 of those undergraduates lived off campus and commuted. Everybody else lived on campus. That is so that social club, that fraternity, we all lived on campus when we had our weekly meetings, it was in one of the rooms in the student center that we had so there was no off-campus activity. It was a dry campus. I mean, think about a fraternity, and think about what fraternity life would be like under those circumstances, where you have maybe half a dozen automobiles once a week, you could get everybody together to go for a beer or something. But for the most part, life for this fraternity was on campus or to revolve-

IG: 1:04:43
It was a dry campus.

FP: 1:04:44
It was a dry campus, so our fraternity activities revolved around athletics, including into a big presence on the intramural athletics. The intramural athletics were more important to most students than the intercollegiate athletics. Today, equivalent today would be correct, football, for example, on the Binghamton campus. But in those days, softball league, soccer leagues, and all of these inter band, basketball, intramural teams dominated the life of the social clubs. That was where the social clubs competed, and what have you, shows, talent shows, that sort of thing what is now the Mandela room in the old student center. That room was originally a mini theater.

IG: 1:05:29
There was a radio station.

FP: 1:05:31
Yes, there was a radio station WHU something, something and but it was not an FM station. It was broadcast on campus only. You had to be in a campus building with it or within-within the confines you know that the signal was focused on-on the campus, we had our newspaper, which was the Colonial News. It was ultimately changed to the Pipe Dream because somebody objected to the word colonial thinking that it means the same thing as a colonialist, whereas it really referred to colonist John Harpur for who the school was named. But-but I, like I will not complain about that. I was a colonial on the athletic teams, but I am proud to be a bear cat. So-so I do not get, I do not get there are certain traditions worthy of change, and I really do not have any-any problem with that at all. But life in the fraternity was focused around the campus life and athletics was focused around training and what have you. And then there was political life on the campus, and that revolved around the student center board, which was the precursor for the Student Association ESA. Student Center board then became ESA later, and I was on the student center board, dorm rep, and with specific responsibility for helping to put on shows. We had a winter weekend and a spring weekend. These were big events, and we brought in talent to put-

IG: 1:07:13
Who did you bring [inaudible]?

FP: 1:07:13
-on a big concert. I will we-we had the Mitchell Trio. Right after John Mitchell retired, it used to be the not John Mitchell, Chad Mitchell, Chad Mitchell retired. So, they kept the name the Mitchell trio. They dropped the chat, and his replacement singer was a young singer by the name of John Denver. So, we had John Denver and the Mitchell Trio. We had Lambert [Dave Lambert], Hendricks [Jon Hendricks] and Bavan [Yolande Bavan] great jazz singers. We had some of the big duo groups, the Drifters, (19)50s and early (19)60s, Simon and Garfunkel.

FP: 1:08:00
They were there?

FP: 1:08:00
But you are talking about they had one hit. They were brand new. You know that that-

IG: 1:08:06
Was your- what was your first hit? Do you remember?

FP: 1:08:10
The first one that I ever heard from them was Silence- Sounds of Silence.

IG: 1:08:13
Oh, is that what they performed? Did you see them perform?

FP: 1:08:16
Yes. Yes.

IG: 1:08:16
And how was, how was that?

FP: 1:08:18
Well, again, they were not superstars.

IG: 1:08:20
They were not superstars.

FP: 1:08:21
We could never have afforded any superstars. Five years after we had John Denver, there never, ever been able to get him again. Three years after we had Simon and Garfunkel, never been able to touch them again. You know, I remember, but it was, remember, the period was the early (19)60s, 1960 mid (19)60s. I got there in (19)63 I left in (19)66 that was, that was the three-year British invasion. So, all the music that we would have wanted to bring to campus-

IG: 1:09:00
Was not, was not available.

FP: 1:09:02
You could not get the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.

IG: 1:09:06
Was not folk. But you really-

FP: 1:09:09
We did have folk singers. We did have folk singers trying to remember, I think we had Buffy Sainte-Marie. We had, you know, some folk we did not get Peter, Paul and Mary, but we did a Buffy Sainte-Marie. I tried to remember-

IG: 1:09:26
Is not, you know, Simon and Garfunkel out of that tradition? I mean [crosstalk]

FP: 1:09:30
They may have been, they may have been out of that tradition. I do not know. I do not know how I would categorize. [crosstalk]

IG: 1:09:35
So let us talk about, let us talk about Sir Rock came to the fore and with it. You know, social change, political change. How alive were you?

FP: 1:09:46
When I got to Binghamton? The-the civil rights movement was the way we defined the Civil Rights Movement looking back on the 1960s from today's perspective, was still in its infancy. There had not been the Detroit riots, Watts and the huge social unrest and social consciousness raising aspects of the civil rights movement, we were concerned about freedom riders being harassed in Mississippi, the death of three students marching the, you know, the fire hoses and dogs and what have you. We were there at the very beginning of the forced integration. Estes Kefauver, Little Rock and and-and, of course, the Old Miss opening its doors to Meredith [James Meredith]. I mean, that was the beginning. But remember, I got there in July of 1963 we took a bus to Washington in August of 1963 we were parked behind-behind I was standing for Martin Luther King. And who was not he-he-he is what everybody remembers for that, from that, what march on Washington because of that incredible speech. But he was not the headliner. We were there because Mahalia Jackson and so many others were going to be performing and what have you. And there were politicians talking about this, and the whole National Mall, from the Lincoln Memorial, where they were going to be speaking, all the way to the Washington Monument. Well, remember the-the Library of Congress is located behind the Capitol building, behind and where and where we are parked there, from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, packed with people. You could not move from the Washington Monument, the reflecting pool completely surrounded. Then mobs of people in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where these speeches are being made. Loudspeakers all over the place, but the truth of the matter is, did not hear a thing. Did not hear a thing, got off the bus in the midst of packing crowds-

IG: 1:12:31
Probably swept up with the fervor, with the- no?

FP: 1:12:35
It was an event. It was it was a road trip adventure.

IG: 1:12:38
It was a road trip.

FP: 1:12:39
It was a road trip adventure. Yes, I thought that the fact that an entire race could be deprived of basic civil rights that I took for granted was horrific. Yes, I absolutely believe that how far out on a limb was I going to go to do something about that I did not have a vote. I was not going to parade up and down streets carrying a placard and have firemen of fire hoses at me. There are plenty of people who will. Okay, so, but I was, I was certainly, I was certainly both emotionally and philosophically involved in the Civil Rights in a broad array of civil rights issues. I remember at that time, there was a major lawsuit in the New York metropolitan area in northern New Jersey, because of blue laws, because the religious Jewish population celebrated the Sabbath on Saturday. They were business owners. They wanted to open their businesses on Sunday, and they were not permitted to, because of blue laws. That is a civil rights issue. There were a lot of those at the time. Clearly the majors, nobody was getting lynched. No, you know there were, and they could vote, and they could bring lawsuits in court, and so I am not trying to make the comparison, but the concept of the civil rights as a movement, you-you create an environment in which every citizen is entitled to their rights, every citizen is entitled to their rights, so it spreads. So, you pick the biggest and most egregious of the offenses to people's civil rights, and that will expand to everybody else. If you start nitpicking on the smaller issues of meaningful issues, you are not going to reach the big ones. So, I understood, completely, understood where the focus was. I was not I was not going to Montgomery [crosstalk]

IG: 1:14:38
-around in the (19)60s.

FP: 1:14:40
I think it started probably in the late (19)50s or early (19)60s, possibly before I got there, but it was already in full bloom by the time I was by the time I arrived at Harpur College, it was in full you heard about it when I was in high school. Uh, you heard about Pete Singer singing, If I had a Hammer, and that sort of thing, and you read about why and what have you, but it did not have the same impact until you were living among students, some of whom were really committed, who took busses down to Mississippi, who took busses to Alabama and what have you, that was not me, but I fully respected what they were doing, because philosophically, I supported that, but I was not going that was not me. I could not, I could not bring myself to do something.

IG: 1:15:33
What are some of the, you know, major political events of the time that you remember that you know, the Kennedy assassination.

FP: 1:15:41
Kennedy assassination was big. Kennedy assassination was November of 19 November 21 or 22nd of 1963 I was I was at the at the Student Center and watching my watch.

IG: 1:16:00
We run a little bit.

FP: 1:16:01
Do not worry about the time. I was watching my watch, and I realized, up, I got to go. I have a chem lab. And you walked across science one was the science building. There was no science 234, or five and six at the time, just science one and-and there was one wing of science, one which has doors even today that open up onto the peace squad that you go through. And it is a traditional lecture hall with the big sliding in those days, I think it was green boards, actually. They did not have whiteboards in those days. It was green with the yellow chalk, but they slid up and down. This was the big deal in any case, and but the door right next to it that took you into that hall, that led you down to where the LA the laboratories were for chemistry, and I had a chem lab at that time, and I am walking across the Peace Corps, and all of a sudden, my friend Tony Oliveri comes, who was in the lab with me, comes running out the hall, and he sees me, and he was like [inaudible] telling me "What is up? Did you hear?" "Hear what?" "President has been shot?" Whoa, well, what goes through your mind? President has been shot? Guys got a wound. To take them to the hospital. It will be fine, right? We walk into the lab together. We start our chemistry lab. The professor is not there. Their grad assistants are running the lab, maybe not even grad assistants. They may have been upperclassmen, I do not recall, and we had very specific assignments that we were supposed to be doing, but the radio is going. We never had the radio going. You did not play music during labs in those days. The radio is going and listen to news reports and, and, and I remember, never forget, all of a sudden, some on the radio that they make an announcement, wait, stop. And somebody's talking to somebody who had just come out of the hospital. This was in Dallas, and said "Priest is up there with him administering last rites." I remember this specifically.

IG: 1:18:21
Just a few hours later.

FP: 1:18:22
Yes.

IG: 1:18:23
Right?

FP: 1:18:23
That is correct. And we look at each other, this is not some shoulder wound. And of course, he died. [crosstalk] John Kennedy, I mean, this was Camelot. We were young. We were there were there were future Republicans of America, or whatever they but everybody, I mean, you did not have the divisiveness that you were a young person. Kennedy was an inspiration. This was the youngest president. I mean, because we had grown up, if you remember when I was born, right after FDR passed away. FDR passed away on April 12 in 1945 and so Truman was the President when I was born, October 1945 and then Eisenhower, and-and-and then, and then Kennedy. So, Kennedy was, you know, 30 years younger than anybody else who had been in the White House during our-our relatively [crosstalk]

IG: 1:19:38
Charismatic and [inaudible].

FP: 1:19:40
Absolutely, so this, it was an incredible, incredibly devastating phenomenon at that at that time, we had never lived through anything like it. I mean, the comparisons people started talking about the Lincoln assassination and-and-

IG: 1:20:00
Everyone remembers that moment. I remember I was in grade school, and I remember the teacher coming in, you know, and sort of huddling with another teacher. And, you know, the news leaked out somehow that he was shot, and then a few hours later, we found out that he was assassinated. All the children were allowed, were let go, you know, and we could go home. But I remember, I remember that day so clearly. Everyone I have spoken to remembers that moment so clearly, because it was a shock. [inaudible]

FP: 1:20:34
Absolutely. How could this happen here? Yeah, it was absolutely a shock. And when they announced that he had died, that is when we had been in the lab for about two hours, and that is when the whoever lab assistant or senior or whatever said, "I think we better wrap it up, close up." So yeah, I remember that very clearly. That was so we had the civil rights movement going on throughout my entire time in Binghamton, and then right on through my old graduate school, we had Kennedy assassination, and immediately followed by, and I do not think it, had he not been assassinated, we would never have had those great society measures passed. Lyndon Johnson became the president and-and he pushed through Congress, you know, massive social legislation, the Voting Rights Act and the war on poverty and-and what have you. It had long term economic consequences. The guns and butter economy had massive consequences, of course, but-but at the time this progressive legislative agenda got through in ways that we never thought would get through had Kennedy survived.

IG: 1:21:53
Why is that? Explain it.

FP: 1:21:55
Well, the main reason was that the Kennedy assassination raised public awareness for the loss of this progressive agenda that was not going anywhere. And then the vice president becomes the president. And the Vice President was everybody knew he ran the Senate. When Lyndon Johnson was in the Senate, he was the boss. Everybody knew that. So, everybody knew he was going to ram through these things, that as vice president, he was not likely to be able to get through the Kennedy assassination disarmed the loyal opposition.

IG: 1:22:34
Interesting.

FP: 1:22:36
And I remember there was one senator, never forget, a Republican senator, and not these were not bad people. The so-called fiscal conservatives of the time, remember New York State and California, each even then, were known, you know, as the blue states, using today's terminology, as bastions of liberal, progressive agendas. So, when you talk about the Republicans in New York State, Nelson Rockefeller was the long-term governor. Malcolm Wilson was the lieutenant governor for 3,4,5, terms. The Attorney General was Louis Lefkowitz, Republican the State Controller was Arthur Levitt, Democrat, and our senior senator from New York State was Jacob Javits, Republican. Well, by today's standards. By today's standards, their politics was slightly to the left of Bernie Sanders.

IG: 1:23:47
Really?

FP: 1:23:47
And they were Republicans. You know-

IG: 1:23:49
It was a very different, very understanding of [inaudible]

FP: 1:23:52
Very different, absolutely-absolutely, very different. So-so trying to-

IG: 1:24:01
How interesting, so how interesting everything that you are saying, and especially you know this, this the political climate of the time.

FP: 1:24:11
But I will never forget, there was during the time when Johnson was pushing through these measures in Congress that involved big government expenditures and the and the things that you hear what the Republican leadership in the Congress and in the Senate these days have to say about proposals to spend money on progressive agendas, strange, what you consider progressive these days? Today, a progressive agenda is rebuilding the infrastructure of the nation. Go figure, whereas conservative agenda is building a border wall. Think about this for a second. But in those days, the biggest issue they had the word. Thing they could say about Johnson's Great Society, billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking about real money. But-but it was, it was, I mean, Sam Rayburn was the Speaker of the House. I mean, it was a totally different world. It was genteel. Politics could be dirty in those smoke-filled rooms. And we know that from our history books, from First, from accounts that that we, that we have but-but in public, the public specter was of gentlemanly disagreement. It may have been serious disagreements, but people were civil. World has really, really changed anyway. The next big issue that came to dominate, academic life for-for the next decade was Southeast Asia, and that had just begun to percolate while I was in college, and I really did not think much of it. I mean, we had read the ugly American we knew about the domino theory. Then John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, who had promoted that, that philosophy that led us into our involvement and a lot of misguided approaches, although you could not know it at the time, but from about 1965 on, it became increasingly clear, that the nation was becoming embroiled in a foreign conflict that was going to bubble over in domestic politics and in social unrest. Of course, it came to its peak in the 1969 in (19)68, (19)68 in Chicago, in (19)68 during the conventions, and then through (19)69 and-and, of course, intermixed with all of that incredible assassination became unbelievable. You know, Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy got shot. Of course, Martin Luther King was assassinated, I mean, and that was not something you-you heard about in the United States. Kent State, absolutely. So now I was already out. I had already graduated. But the reason I mentioned that was because prior to my graduating, this was either in late (19)65 or early (19)66 there was a selective service qualifying exam. We all had went from the time you turned 18, you had to have a draft card, a Selective Service ID number and a draft card. Dutifully, we all got our draft cards. You had not yet entered the period when people were burning. That had not yet happened, but if you were, if you were planning to continue in school after you graduated, in order to maintain your student deferment, you had to score above a certain threshold on the Selective Service qualifying exam. They were not going to give graduate net professional school students a free ride out of the draft, just because you were in school.

IG: 1:29:07
Right, I did not know that part. I thought it was just because you were in school. No, you have to score a certain was it like an SAT?

FP: 1:29:14
Yes. Oh, more like a GRE I mean, you were college graduates are going to be right. Of course, yes. So, within a matter of within a matter of two months, I took the Selective Service qualifying exam, I took the MCATs and I took the GREs. I took the MCATs only because my father told me to do it. I had already decided I was going to graduate school in economics. I said, "Do not worry that I will be a doctor, just a different kind of a doctor." But I, but I took off. I took four exams Selective Service and cats. GRS, OH. Were three different exams, and in relatively short order, obviously I did well enough to maintain my student deferment while I went off to graduate school. And that was the end of my Harpur College student career. But as I say at that time in that during the late, late 2005 and the first half of 2000 I graduated in June of-of (19)66 I graduated in June of (19)66 and so during that year, [inaudible] called my senior year. She called my senior year the-the phenomenon of the Vietnam War and its impact on student life and on society in general was just beginning to enter our consciousness in a big way. The first big way was, you were not going to graduate school if you do not do well on this exam, you were going into the army. Oh, you were going to be drafted army, navy to the armed services. And so that was my first big awakening to the reality of what was going on around me that I was not paying that much attention to. Then, once I was in graduate school, once I was up in Albany. I mean, there were mass demonstrations all the time. I was never a demonstrator. No different with regard to Vietnam as it was to the civil rights movement. These were issues about which I cared deeply and emotionally, philosophically, but I did not put myself on-on the line for good or ill.

IG: 1:31:44
Did you feel sorry for the men who were drafted and that they did not have the [crosstalk]

FP: 1:31:49
I was teaching when I was in Albany. I had a teaching fellowship. I ref I refuse to give a male student anything less than a C I do not care how badly they did, because I was afraid-

IG: 1:32:02
[crosstalk[ passing grade?

FP: 1:32:03
It was the last, well, D is, D was a passing grade, but it would not be enough to for them to maintain their student department.

IG: 1:32:11
I see.

FP: 1:32:11
And these were undergrads. So-so it did affect the way I conducted my classes, and yeah, so it became, it became a big it became a big deal. Now I will tell you that as a graduate student, I developed relationships with professors that I had heard some of my undergraduate classmates had when they were when we were back at Harpur, but I never had those relationships in graduate school, I would have dinner at a professor's house. There were two or three other professors who, themselves were going out for a drink, and would invite me along, and we would sit and we would talk theory, and we would pull out napkins, remember the famous Laffer Curve and what have you. Well, that is where these things came from, groups of scholars sitting around tables, having a beer, but also talking about and it ended up getting me some interesting, interesting opportunities. I was there was there was a PBS, there was a PBS series back in the late (19)60s called controversy, controversies in social sciences or something like this. And this particular and there was a and there was a particular episode called controversies in economics, monetary policy and the Federal Reserve.

IG: 1:33:52
That is very high-high, very high brow and very intellectual. I was watching Get Smart.

FP: 1:34:01
Well, I watch Get Smart. I watch Get Smart too, but I was on that episode along with-

IG: 1:34:07
You still have that clip?

FP: 1:34:09
No, that is long that that is long lost. You cannot if, I mean, if anybody finds it on YouTube or something, God bless them. Was the late (19)60s, and it was the chairman of the it was the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, who also happens to be the chairman of the Open Market Committee. And there were a couple of professors, and there was me, a graduate student, studying monetary theory and-and-and this was filmed in the WNW students [crosstalk]

IG: 1:34:47
When did PBS begin in Albany?

FP: 1:34:50
Oh, that I forget. I do not know but, but this was filmed in New York City or in, actually, in New Jersey. Was actually filmed in New Jersey. It was not, it was, was not an in New York City Park--was at a studio, and it was WNT the channel 13, their studios, and that was [crosstalk]. Yeah, and, and that is-

IG: 1:35:17
So, tell me, you know, we were, we have been talking for a while. Tell me about just you know, the trajectory of your career. What are some of the highlights you went to NYU-

FP: 1:35:29
Well, I graduated from Binghamton, and my first stop Graduate School of Public Affairs at SUNY, SUNY Albany, I had been admitted to Columbia University. Again, it was always my go to but I would have to pay. In Albany, I had a fellowship.

IG: 1:35:49
Right. That makes a difference, of course, and you probably profited from that experience more.

FP: 1:35:54
It was small, it was a smaller program, and it was, it was very good. So, I got my master's degree in in political economy at the Graduate School of Public Affairs, and I developed some great relationships with very famous economists. Morris Copeland, who had been at Cornell University, was recruited and came over to Albany at that time, Louis Saul, Louis Saul Kiefer and Franklin Walker and Jack Gelfand. I mean, these were very well-known economists in the literature that had been recruited during the Rock- before Rockefeller left New York State to become the vice president under Jerry Ford, he his personal legacy was going to be the State University of New York, and the state, you know, and the state legislator, legislature funded this incredible expenditure, building campuses, creating four University Centers at Stony Brook, Buffalo Albany and-and Binghamton to-to medical school. Stony Brook, at that time, I did not yet have a medical school. So, there are two medical schools of downstate and upstate or in Buffalo. So, three medical schools, law schools. I mean, they were building a university to rival the-the only school in scope, the only public university in scope that rivals was-was California. There were other better known state universities that the Michigan's, the Wisconsin's, you know, and what have you, of the world, but-but our university system was founded in 1948 Triple Cities College was founded in 1946 as you know, but it was a joint venture between NYU and Syracuse University, and there were two that they found at Utica College and Triple Cities College, and they founded those schools joint ventures in order to provide educational opportunities for returning GIS right after the war that was 1946. The school in Binghamton was purchased by this fledgling State University in 1948 and in 1950 changed its name to Harpur College. They created Harpur College in 1950 was located in Endicott in a Quonset hut, and-and gradually they moved with in 1950 they moved over to the mansion and-and then the rest is history. [crosstalk] Yeah, well, that those were those quad set hearts, exactly, and then, and then, by 1960 they started construction on the current campus. In the first building was that gym.

IG: 1:38:39
So, tell me, tell me. Give me highlights of your career. You graduated-

FP: 1:38:45
I left, I left. I graduated Albany and met my future wife. She- I did not have to graduate from Albany. I had my master's, but I was in the PhD program. I could have stayed, but she was- had graduated the same time that I got my master's. She got her bachelor's degree, and she was going to graduate school at the New School for Social Research, going for her doctorate in at that time, was a master's in in psychology at the New School. And I opted not to stay away from her. So, we decided to get married, which we did, and we moved into an apartment in Brooklyn, and she went to school at the New School. I went to work for the First Boston Corporation, and was admitted to the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Business Administration, now the Stern School at NYU and-and then I finished up my doctoral studies there while working for First Boston. I-

IG: 1:39:58
What did you specialize in? [crosstalk]

FP: 1:40:00
Well, First Boston was an investment bank.

IG: 1:40:04
No-no, I meant your thesis.

FP: 1:40:06
Oh, it was foreign capital flows. Foreign capital flows, basically a it was a modeling exercise to designed to measure forces that influenced our balance the capital funds side of the balance of payments, you have the balance of trade, goods and services, and then you have the rest of the balance of payments, which are capital flows that are offset or fail to offset, trade. And what are the forces that influence those everything from currency movement-

IG: 1:40:41
[inaudible] like risk assessment?

FP: 1:40:43
Not really. I mean, that is James Tobin risk assessment. That is that ultimately became Nobel Prize winning stuff for the economist who specialized in that and helped explain what goes on in the stock market. I wish I had studied that. There was no-no future business benefit from studying international capital flows, but I was more interested in the effects that exchange rate movements had on balance of payments, on costs of goods in the importing country, which were influenced not Just by the usual market forces that that influence prices. But something called effective tariffs. We know what a tariff is. Well, there are effective tariffs. That is the actual percentage of the selling price of the good, above the production cost of the good and profit. So, you have production cost, profit, and then some additional costs. Well, those additional costs may be more lower or higher than the so-called tariff, and what influences that, and what influence does those actual costs have on how those things are financed and how they were financed influences capital flows and capital flows, we know in this, even then, even in the 1960s the-the reality had already set in that interstate banking restrictions. We did not we did not have interstate bank in the United States meant that US banks were not going to be able to grow adequately to compete with the large international banking firms that had no such restrictions and-and there were other similar restrictions we had. We had a glass wall in Glass Steagall between investment banking and commercial banking and-and that limited growth, I think, in a good way, we should never have removed it. And we have seen the effects in the replay and then in 2007 and eight of the same kind of financial disaster that that that led to the Great Depression in the 1930s we could have had that again, because we removed from the fiduciary responsibilities of banks restrictions preventing them from gambling on the very volatile financial markets.

IG: 1:43:17
So, but thank you for explaining this in a nutshell. I mean, this is a history and economics lesson for me.

FP: 1:43:27
Bur-but the key point for me, the interesting point for me, was that we that foreign banks were not so restricted. And therefore, they could, they could dominate these international flows of funds. What did not occur to me at the time was that those capital flows could be used to influence elections and election outcomes and what have you the fact that Deutsche Bank has bankrolled what otherwise is a horrible business person. And not only horrible from a personality point of view, but actually business acumen wise, everybody in business knows that Trump is a horrible businessman, and he was always bankrupt and that he is totally financed by-by foreign capital flows. I did not know it at the time. That is not what I was studying. Oh, in New York, it was well, and they were saying [crosstalk]

IG: 1:44:22
[inaudible] horrible business person.

FP: 1:44:24
I mean, not just a horrible business person because he cheats, because he refuses to pay, and that sort of thing.

IG: 1:44:29
I know that he was bankrupt.

FP: 1:44:31
Oh, yeah, he has been bankrupted more times than virtually bankrupt, I know, but he is bankrolled. Yeah, Deutsche Bank owns him, and now Deutsche Bank is being investigated by the AG in New York, and for good reason, they could end up losing their US license to operate here, and they, in turn, are being bankrolled by a bunch of Russian banks who are who with whom, US citizens are banned from-from dealing because of sanctions. Oh, but I did not study any of this. I did not-

IG: 1:45:04
You follow this. Did you teach in your career?

FP: 1:45:07
Oh yeah-yeah.

IG: 1:45:08
So, tell us [crosstalk]

FP: 1:45:10
First, when I was in Albany and I was in the PhD program, but the famous booby prize, you get your master's degree after you finish your coursework and taking qualifying exams. So, but-but I had been teaching at a teaching fellowship, so I was teaching there, and in the summers, I actually had paid teaching assignments. And so, I was teaching at Albany. When I went to New York, I taught. I actually landed a teaching spot at the New School with Jeannie, my-my wife was-was going to school, and so I taught at the New School for Social Research. And then I and then, and we were living in Brooklyn at the time. We moved to Queens to Flushing, because she had graduated, got her master's degrees, and then she went on for her PD professional diploma at the- she switched from social psychology to educational psychology, school psychology and-and she went to St John's University, which is in Queens, and so we moved to Flushing.

IG: 1:46:11
Yeah, you mentioned that in [inaudible].

FP: 1:46:13
And I did not feel like traveling from Wall Street out to Flushing and then back into town to 14th Street to teach at the New School. Our next-door neighbor in the building where we were living in Flushing was a professor of accounting at Hofstra University, so he invited me to come down and talk to the department chairman. The next semester I was teaching money and banking at Hofstra University, so I taught at Hofstra University for a year or two. Well, it was actually three semesters, so a year and a half and um, and uh, you know, I finished up my degree [coughs] worked for First Boston, and that went on until 1986.

IG: 1:47:06
Mm-hmm, both the teaching and First Boston?

FP: 1:47:09
Yes, I had an adjunct position during the entire time that I was working at First Boston. Primary role at First Boston was to serve the needs of clients. So, if a client was involved in a particular investment, for example, they were going to issue couple of 100 million dollars’ worth of corporate bonds in order to finance the purchase of another business and acquisition. What is the economic outlook for the nation? Should we be financing with fixed rate bonds? Should we be doing this with bank loans? Should we be doing this with variable rate instruments? What is your forecast for interest the interest rate outlook over the foreseeable future, the next six months, the next year, the next 10 years, within the firm, what, what does-what do the economic prognosticators claim is likely to be the course of economic events, because first, Boston also took large positions in the securities markets, particularly the government securities markets, primary deal in securities and-and so they wanted to know both our own personal thoughts and whatever research we were doing, but primarily we were information gathering. So, there were big research firms Chase econometrics, DRI Data Resources Incorporated. That is Otto Eckstein's firm and a number of other large models of US economic activity. There are economists at all the large commercial banks and whatever they are all generating these forecasts, our job was to gather all of this intel, put it into a meaningful, compact presentation, and share most likely our thoughts and the and then spread the whole range for the investment bankers, because they are the ones who are going to put the firm's money on the line.

IG: 1:49:16
Right-right. [inaudible] can make recommendations [crosstalk]

FP: 1:49:19
Absolutely, well, I would not be in a position to make a recommendation invest in this or invest in that. I might say I think interest rates are going to be going up. Certainly, the preponderance of information suggests that is going to be the case. And I have done some research on my own, it suggests that, in the past, when these circumstances arise, that is what happens. That is how the Federal Reserve responds. So, if I were you, I would not be investing in fixed income instruments. I might be focusing my attention more on real estate or whatever. But I am not the one who makes the decision to put stuff on the line. So, I have told you what-what the evidence shows. You still have to make, which is why I get paid a modest salary, and you make millions of dollars. I am staff you are [inaudible] and-and that was all that, but that is what I that is what I did there. And also, from time to time, clients would ask us to visit them. They were having a dinner for the local community. It could be, it could be a university where they, you know, the First Bank One of Ohio is headquarters, you probably know, in Columbus, and they are very closely tied to Ohio, to Ohio State and-and so they fund a center the-the-the Bank One, Bank Ohio, in those days now it but Bank Ohio a center for the study of economic developments at the Ohio State University, and-and they, and they are holding this big conference, and they have got several different economists we would like you to be among that list. Please come and give a speech on the economic outlook or on whatever. Well, they are entitled to that. That is, that is a service that first, Boston provides to their clients.

IG: 1:51:23
You would give these-

FP: 1:51:24
So, I would go and I would give a lecture or a speech or what have you. I was, I had a lot of dinner meetings in New York and around the country. I mean, their first Boston, did a lot of business with state governments, particularly the retirement funds-funds or the endowments of the public universities and what have you and-and so part of that service included my going out, and-

IG: 1:51:53
What was your title? You were-

FP: 1:51:54
Vice President, Economist. Vice President, Economist. In the economist department, it was called the, not the economics department. Was called The Economist department. Singular, there were, there were about five of us. I was not the boss. Albert [inaudible] was the boss. But and I did. I did a speech once at the western states, State Treasurers Conference, treasurers from all of the Rocky Mountain and West Coast states, including Alaska, came and we met in in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

IG: 1:52:35
That is where my daughter lived.

FP: 1:52:38
And I gave a presentation out there, speech, and we did other conferences like that around that that was not really research. That was entertainment. We were the after-dinner entertainment, make no mistake about that, but that is a service that-that investment [crosstalk]

IG: 1:52:56
Meanwhile, your teaching career-

FP: 1:52:58
Well, it was- always as an adjunct.

IG: 1:53:00
At Hofstra?

FP: 1:53:02
Well, it did not actually, no, it did not end at Hofstra. But there is a twist to this whole tale, because all of this continued until 1986 and 1986 everything came tumbling down. I got, I was diagnosed with a non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and the-the um, the treatment was expected to be successful. They had good success rates, no guarantees, of course, but-but it was a very intense six months. Let us put it that way, between radiation, chemotherapy and-and a few surgical procedures because they were cutting out lesions that had popped up on the surface and-and I ultimately, I ultimately left First Boston. I could not walk across the street in the amount of time from the time that the-the walk sign came on, I could not make it across the street before the light had changed. I mean, the serious nerve damage, it was, it was rough. I mean, I could not really function very well in a work.

IG: 1:54:17
And you were just a young man. You were-

FP: 1:54:18
I was not that young, 40, 40, [crosstalk] but uh, but um, I, but I got through it, and I survived and-and moved on. My wife was an educator. She gotten her degree in School Psychology. She was working in Cornwall schools and then Pearl River School System up where we lived in Rockland County, and so our whole circle of friends tended to be a mixed bag of people from the financial community and people from the educational, K-12 educational community. And so, the questions were, are you going back to First Boston or to the world of finance? And at the time, I had three young children. My oldest was born in (19)81 my youngest was born in (19)87 and the middle one was born in (19)83 they were relatively young. I- working at first boss, and I never saw them. Sounds always traveling. Was always on the road. Investment banking hours are seven to seven.

IG: 1:55:39
Yes, I know.

FP: 1:55:39
It is, you know, I just never saw them and-and here, I just had a, what in my fragile psychological state I call a near death experience. So, physicians would tell you know that it was highly unlikely there is a 90 percent cure rate. So, you know, it was very unlikely that-

IG: 1:56:01
You had, you had the experience of a near death experience, or just the fact of [crosstalk]

FP: 1:56:05
Just my, just the fact of being diagnosed with-with a word that starts with a C.

IG: 1:56:11
Of course.

FP: 1:56:11
It is a cancer. So-so-so I am reevaluating what I am going to do with the rest of my life, and one of Jean's friends, for some strange reason I will never understand this, educators tend to marry educators. There are exceptions, and I am one of them, but many of our friends, wife was a teacher. Husband is a teacher or administrator, or some, you know, some, some can both some connection to education. Why that is, I do not know. But one of the gentlemen who was not Jean's [inaudible] was friend with the wife who was a guidance counselor, if I am not mistaken, at Pearl River High School. Her husband was a math or science teacher at one of the high schools in New York City. And says, "Why do not you become a teacher? They are desperate, desperate for teachers." So, I went down to 65 Court Street in Brooklyn, and I walked in to the office of recruitment. I walked over to took a number, walk over to the desk, "Yes, sir. How can we help you?" "Well, I was thinking about a second career in education as a teacher." "Very good. What have you got? What-what can you teach? What are you, what are you equipped to teach? Do you have any educate teaching licenses?" I said, "Look, I have been teaching on the college level for the next for the last 20 years. Well, last 15 years anyway, and I have a PhD in economics. I thought I would be a high school social studies teacher." By the time, by the time he finished laughing and pulled himself up from the floor, and came back over and says, "Social studies teachers are a dime a dozen. What else have you got? Let me see your college vita, not interested in graduate school." Pull out my college. I was told, what brings a whole bunch of documents you have to [crosstalk].

IG: 1:58:38
Can I guess?

FP: 1:58:40
Yes.

IG: 1:58:42
Biology.

FP: 1:58:44
"Either biology or chemistry, science, high school science, biology or chemistry. Absolutely, that is what we need. We have a shortage. Yes, and you are qualified, except that you do not have the ED credits. We have a program. It is called the fast track to education. You will set you up teaching science. There are some exams you have to go through." In those days, they had something called the board of examiners. New York City independently licensed teachers in those days, separate from New York state licensure, and it was actually more challenging to get a New York City license than it was to get a New York State license. But you have got to take this exam, and you have got to sit through this board, and you got to do this. You got to do that. You are going to have to take a laboratory test. Now. You got to remember the last time I was in a biology lab or chemistry lab was when I was at Harpur College.

IG: 1:59:38
Yes.

FP: 1:59:39
[laughs] And that is 20 years ago.

IG: 1:59:41
How did you feel?

FP: 1:59:42
I pulled out a review book. There were review books for these tests.

IG: 1:59:47
So, you were determined?

FP: 1:59:48
Oh yeah. And I looked through them, and I said, I know this stuff. And I went to all the exams.

IG: 1:59:54
[inaudible] thought about giving up that illustrious career that you had it for [crosstalk]

FP: 1:59:58
Thrilled.

IG: 1:59:59
And teaching at Hofstra?

FP: 2:00:03
I could still do that, [inaudible] and by the way, there is more to the story, because that I come back to, that is quite all right, okay, so I, so I my first teaching assignment is at the Langston Hughes High School on 18th Street. I am teaching chemistry, and-and I get a call from District 12 in the Bronx. They are developing a computer science program for elementary and middle schools in that community, school district, and from this office of recruitment. Among all the other things, there was a lot of computer technology. Because ay First Boston, we were at the forefront of modern computer education interestingly enough, because when you have to teach investment bankers how to use a computer and how to learn from a computer you are well equipped to teach in elementary school how to how to use a person the new personal computers. Oh, yeah, that role of teaching people how to use personal computers, the IBM XTS and ATS and what have you teaching all of the sales, of course, how to use their computers. Who do you think that fell to there was no in house IT department? [laughter] Eventually they developed big IT departments, but the first, the very first step that way. So, any case. So, this is all on my resume, and so get sent up. So, I ended up going up to the Bronx and-and I was hired to teach, to set up, to set up computer labs. And I had literally an unlimited budget with Apple, and I was getting all of these early Apple-Apple two computers, and then the GS is, and then the Macs and the setup computer labs.

IG: 2:02:04
This was in early (19)90s?

FP: 2:02:06
This was in the late (19)80s and early (19)90s, yes-yes.

IG: 2:02:12
And to all of these apples, and we were just coming to education, to the universities, I remember.

FP: 2:02:19
Well, it was, it was very interesting. Apple differed dramatically from IBM, not just because the computer architecture and the chip themselves were different, but because Apple said it is not going to be hardware driven, we are going to provide this hardware virtually at our cost of production. Practically give it away, because the monies in the software. That, of course, is exactly what Microsoft, what Bill Gates said IBM idiots had the opportunity to own that d- that disk operating system that Microsoft had developed. And they said, "No, we lease it" because the monies in the hardware. No bad, one of IBM's worst business decisions ever. But long story short, I ended up going from the Bronx back to Manhattan. I went to work for district 12 or district 75 which is the city-wide program for special education, and doing the same thing, teaching computers to developing, building computer labs and teaching students how to use computers and teaching teachers how to integrate computer application. [crosstalk] No, the software was widely plenty of vendors producing excellent stuff for me to sit down and do that. I might as well go to work for one of the vendors and produce the software. But the commercially available software was excellent, and getting better every day was no point. But somebody had to set up the lab, somebody had to teach teachers how to how to use this. Somebody had to teach the kids how to use it. And so-so that was me, and that went on until 1998. 1990 and in the meantime, I came fully certified. And what have you. 1998 the superintendent of district 75 city white programs called me into the office and says, you need to be an administrator. I cannot have you working on a teaching line, doing what you do. So, I became a special education administrator, and I had to go to school. So, I-I went to school. I went to College of New Rochelle prior to their financial collapse recently, although this snap. and back. Thank goodness, because it is actually a very good school. But I went there because they had a fast-track program to become an administrator, school administrator and-and then I got my New York state license as an administrator, all of it that was in the evenings, because I was working during the day. Then I became an administrator, eventually at my own school, which was located ready for this 88th Street between Park and Lex. So I was, I was 30 blocks up, right down the block from the Guggenheim. Guggenheim is right there. And while I was that, and once, once, I was ensconced up there. And that basically went from 1998 until I retired in 2011.

IG: 2:05:48
Did you enjoy this part of your career more? You know-

FP: 2:05:52
That is like, that is like, believe it or not. And I have used, I have been asked that question. I basically had two careers, investment banking, with the side gig of adjunct teaching of economics, and then K to 12 education, with an emphasis of special education, but also a side gig, because, and this was the thing I told you I was going to get back to. I was recruited to teach at both Mercy College and Turo College. At Mercy College, I was teaching education, special education to prospective teachers, undergraduates. And at Turo, I was teaching experienced teachers in Supervision and Administration, preparing them to get licenses as building a supervised assistant principal. [crosstalk] So I was teaching, so I had that adjunct gig go throughout my education career as well. So, the question you asked these two careers that I had [crosstalk], two 20-year careers, which, thinking back on it, which did I like better? Which one did I and the and I use this analogy before, because they have been asked that question before? How do you choose between son number one and son number three or son number two? I cannot I thoroughly enjoyed both. I have loved my careers. Both. Got a lot of self-satisfaction out of both. Um, and-

IG: 2:06:39
What do you think it is the quality in you? And this is, you know we are going to ask, I ask everybody you know, what lessons did you learn from your life that you can share with students? What is the you know? What are, what are the qualities, what is the mindset of somebody who equally loves these extremely different uh-

FP: 2:08:03
I had opportunities. I had, I personally had opportunities to move into these two particular careers under different circumstances. It might have been very different careers, and it I believe, I cannot prove it, because it did not happen, but I believe it to be the case that if I had gotten involved in a different career, I would have ended up loving it as well, putting myself into it [crosstalk] So it is just the way I am that I get involved in something, I throw myself at it, and I develop a relationship with that field of study, with that career, with that activity and-and appreciate and develop a great appreciation for it. So, it is less about the particular careers and more about the fact that there were two different careers. There could have been three, there could have been four, or there could have been two that were totally different, but I believe I would have been pretty much psychologically in the same place I am today, having had two successful careers and having enjoyed them both, what I would tell anybody else, first of all, because of primarily of my adjunct teaching, I believe in career oriented education on the graduate level, I believe in a liberal arts background prior to getting that professional training, because it opens your eyes to so many opportunities about which you may not be aware which professional training are you going to get when you decide I am going to be a teacher and I am going as an undergraduate to get an elementary education background, you have divorced yourself from a world of possibilities. I love K to 12 education, and I am and I love teachers, and I really believe that is an excellent career choice for many people. But how do you know as an 18- to 22-year-old that that is what you want to do for the rest of your life? At the age of 22 four years have gone by. You have been exposed to the world now. If you still feel that way, get that professional education. Go for those teaching credentials. Spend two years. Get a master's in education. That is great. Do not do it as an undergraduate. And I have taught the people who did it as an undergraduate, and that so many of them are very good teachers, but it is like a thoroughbred who runs races with blinders on to keep their eyes focused on the track. They do great running down the track. Unfortunately, they will never be able to pull a fire truck or-or run in a rodeo or do anything else, but this because that is what they have been exposed to, and they do not have a clue as to what else is out there. You want to become an accountant. Wonderful. I went to the Stern School, and a lot of the people at the Graduate School of Business Administration were studying accounting and Advanced Accounting, becoming CPAs and MBAs and what have you excellent. Get a liberal arts education. Know what the world has in store for you. Four years later, you decide, you know, I took an accounting course as an undergraduate. I took a business course as an undergraduate. I really that is where my interest lies. I am going to go to graduate school at Business Administration. I am going to focus on accounting on to get my CPA and what have you. It is not a waste of time. Do not go as an undergraduate to become an accountant. You graduate as an undergraduate accountant. Now you have still got to go for another two years before you can take the CPA exam. You could have done it in exactly the same amount of time, and your exposure to the world would have been so much greater. I am a firm believer in a liberal arts education and save professional training for later, for-for later, because it is not that much later. It really is. It seems when you were 18 years of age that it is that much later, but it really is not. So, I-I loved, with the benefit of hindsight, my broad-based education. I am not a great fan of mandates, but there are certain requirements for getting an undergraduate education that are not often enforced and I personally, and that may just be me, but after the fact, I very much value the fact that I was forced to take a course in anthropology, a course in sociology, which courses that I would Not in a million years, have chosen on my own. Where else would I have read Argonauts of the Pacific? Bronowski, so classic. I mean, you know, but you know where you know. This is important. This is if you are going to be educated, be educated, at least exposed to the world, and then narrow your focus to your interests. Well, how do you know what your interests are at the age of 18? When I was 18, I was going to go away to college to become a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, an accountant. That is it. That is all there was no that is not all there was. And so, to the next generation. And by the way, my kids, my son, Jordan, as I said, my middle son, he went to Binghamton. He entered Harpur College. He lived at Hinman, went to that Hinman program of literature, and whatever it was that first year, got involved. His involvement at school was in the essay. He was the president of NSA my son, Jordan, as well as and then he went on to MIT, got a master's and a doctorate in engineering at MIT, and today he and he ended up focusing his doctoral dissertation in this area of research was in health systems. It is engineering systems, or systems engineering, and with a particular emphasis on health systems, and he was the director of process improvement for Maine Health, which is a large hospital management company in New England, and in fact, we are very good friends. He has become very good friends with the now soon to retire at the end of this year, Dean of Watson. Uh. And during these years, Jordan was routinely consulting with Watson about the health-health management systems programming of Watson here in Manhattan. And he was, he was part of that. So that is my oldest son. He went, he went to Cornell. My many cousins who went to Cornell. Cornell was one of the places where the educated side of our family, my uncles, who were college graduates and their children, all went to Cornell. So, I that is why I went. That is why, when I was applying to an Ivy I applied to Columbia. I was not going to Cornell because that is where all my cousins were, but my son wanted to go to Cornell. He went to Cornell. He ended up meeting and marrying his wife at Cornell. They now live in Boston. He is an attorney. And my youngest son also went to Cornell. He went to Cornell and became a meteorologist. Studied meteorology there, went out to the University of Colorado Boulder, which is where Noah is located. And they work for Noah and for Lasp. Lasp is the laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics.

IG: 2:16:16
Does he have a graduate degree?

FP: 2:16:18
Got a PhD, and he was, he was he now, he was teaching at Columbia, but he just moved about a year and a half ago up to Cambridge. At Harvard University, they have, they have an incubator, just like many of the schools do, and he is involved in a startup at-at the incubator at Harvard in data science.

IG: 2:16:45
That is going to be a very big field.

FP: 2:16:47
He is in this data science, and they are developing models and programming and or what have you, and-and that. And that is, that is what he is doing. [crosstalk] Incredibly proud of them all, but they all have one thing in common. [crosstalk] they all have one thing in common, and I do not mean the same parents. They all started their post high school educational careers in broad based liberal arts education, and they are all well-educated. So, they are not just top flight professionals. They are well educated. They are well educated citizens of the world. And that is important for me. That is what gives me the greatest pride, that plus the fact that they have jobs actually, they are actually making money so and they all own their own homes and-and they are not that old. I mean, you know,

IG: 2:17:48
It has been really a pleasure talking to you. I think that now we should think of wrapping up our conversation together. Do you have any concluding remarks?

FP: 2:18:00
Well, the project itself, when I was first approached, and when you first sent me, this goes back September, I think. But it was before, it was before homecoming, and-and informed me that that the library was initiating this project and-and that you were going to be putting together a history of the (19)60s. I thought back about my life and how much of it? And there has been a lot of it. I am suddenly three years old, so there has been a lot of life that followed my Harpur College experience. And, you know, I am not an architect, I am not an engineer, but it is fairly well known that any successful edifice rests squarely on a sound foundation, and Harpur College gave me that foundation. I am incredibly proud of that background, and over the course of my life, I mean, I have met people who knew about Harpur College when Harpur College was a tiny little liberal the liberal arts college of the state university system, a tiny little school. I-I was a student at Harpur, a senior at the time, and I was working at a I mentioned to you that I finance my some of my passionate expenses, like owning an automobile, to you and that sort of thing with my summertime earnings at a boy’s camp and one of the youngsters in my, in my cabin when I was working at a boy’s camp, was chip Fisher. And you might say, well, who is chip Fisher? Well, Chip Fisher is Avery Fisher's son. So, I got to meet Avery Fisher and his wife. Avery Fisher himself was an engineer and an acoustic engineer and the designer Hi Fi equipment and all of that sort of thing. His wife was a lover of the arts. I did not know it at the time, when I was a student at Harpur College, we had artists in residence, the Guarneri Quartet-Quartet. She was the one who got paid the bill. And I did not have a clue, and I ended up meeting her. I said, "Well, I am a senior at Harpur College. “She looked at me, "Harpur the Guarneri [The Guarneri String Quartet]." [laughter] So all I can say is, no, not everybody in the world needs to go to Binghamton University. It is a great school, but anybody who is going to pursue education for the sake of learning has my vote. Do it. Get an education, spring out into your professional careers, study for your professions and what have you. Once you know what you want, once you develop your passions, but give yourself the opportunity, an expansive opportunity, to explore lots of opportunities, lots of passionate things to do in this world, explore them, and then pick the passions that you have from that array and-and then go for it absolutely. So that is my those are my concluding remarks. Harpur was an excellent jumping off point for me, and sound undergraduate education is a great jumping off point for anybody. But explore your passions while you are while you are young, and then pursue your professional career. Do not do it backwards.

IG: 2:21:59
Thank you very much.

FP: 2:22:00
So that is [crosstalk] my pleasure. My pleasure.

(End of Interview)

2018-12-21

Irene Gashurov

1966

Fred Neil Peck

Fred Neil Peck of Long Island graduated from Harbor College in 1966 with a degree in biology, where he was actively involved in athletics and fraternity life. He later earned a master’s degree from SUNY Albany and a PhD in economics from NYU, reflecting a shift in his academic focus from the sciences to economics. Peck began his career at First Boston Corporation, where he provided economic forecasting and client services. He later transitioned into education, teaching at Hofstra University before moving into the New York City public school system, where he worked in Special Education Administration. He is married, has three sons, and resides in the New York City area.

Audio

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