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Interview with Dr. Andrew Grant
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Title
Interview with Dr. Andrew Grant
Contributor
Grant, Andrew ; Gashurov, Irene
Subject
Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Alumni in higher education administration; Harpur College – Alumni in higher education administration; Harpur College – Alumni at Hebrew Union College; Harpur College – Alumni living in Suffolk County, Long Island
Description
Dr. Andrew Grant is a retired Assistant VP for Institutional Advancement at Hebrew Union College in NYC. He worked as a disc jockey at WHRW-FM.
Date
2018-02-14
Rights
In Copyright
Identifier
Andrew Grant.mp3
Date Modified
2018-08-01
Is Part Of
Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni
Extent
69:46 minutes
Transcription
Alumni Interviews
Interview with: Andrew Grant
Interviewed by: Irene Gashurov
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 14 February 2018
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
IG: 00:00
Where are you, if I may ask? Are you at home or in your office?
AG: 00:04
I do not have an office. I am retired.
IG: 00:06
Oh!
AG: 00:07
On January 2.
IG: 00:09
Could you- well, congratulations on your retirement. We just want to make you a little bit louder. I am-
Third speaker 00:15
Okay. This is, I think, the loudest.
IG: 00:19
That is the loudest it can go?
IG: 00:20
do I need to do that? Or you do that? Yeah, it does. It does not get louder, yeah, can you? Can you do it from your end? Dr, Chris,
AG: 00:31
I do not think so. I think my volume control is only- my machine,
Third speaker 00:37
Yeah.
AG: 00:37
Is that better, or no?
IG: 00:40
I think so. I think so, okay, okay, so why do not we begin, um-
AG: 00:48
[inaudible] you need to move a little bit more together so I can see.
IG: 00:54
Okay-okay, so we are not-
Third speaker 00:58
Okay, okay, I will just-
IG: 01:00
I am just looking through my notes. That is, that is why I moved away. Okay, so why do not we begin with you identifying yourself when you were born, what you do and when you went to Binghamton,
AG: 01:27
What was the last one?
IG: 01:29
When you went to Binghamton? Or we could ask that later.
AG: 01:34
Okay. My name is Andrew grant. I was born in November of 1946. I went to Binghamton. I graduated in 1967.
IG: 01:46
Okay, very good. So where did you grow up?
AG: 01:51
In Manhattan and the Bronx.
IG: 01:54
Oh, may I ask where in Manhattan?
AG: 01:58
In Washington Heights.
IG: 01:59
Oh, I lived in Washington Heights.
AG: 02:02
Where?
IG: 02:04
By Fort Tryon Park.
AG: 02:05
Yeah, that is where I lived.
IG: 02:07
Okay, 1/80 and Fort Washington Avenue in probably the most beautiful apartment building and apartment that I have ever lived in. It was beautiful, Art Deco.
AG: 02:24
Yeah, I was, we were on 1/90 and Hillside.
Speaker 1 02:27
Okay,
AG: 02:27
At the lower at the lower end of the park, my sister actually still has an apartment up there.
IG: 02:31
Oh! Well, um, yeah, I am familiar with that area very well, and a lot of my Russian emigre friends lived there. There was a big Russian community in Washington Heights, but that is, that is after your time.
AG: 02:52
That is after my time. My time was, it was many Holocaust survivors, as-as-as was my family.
IG: 03:02
Yeah, okay. These were, these were refuseniks who came to the US in the late (19)70s and early (19)80s. A lot of-
AG: 03:15
My parents. My parents came from Germany in 1940.
IG: 03:18
Okay-okay, all right, so and who were your parents?
AG: 03:25
Who were they? Who were my- the names?
IG: 03:27
What you can tell us their names, what did they do? What was their occupation? Where were they from? You mentioned this briefly. They were from Germany. They came in 1940. What did they do in Germany? What did they do in the United States? What was their occupation?
AG: 03:47
My father, my father had a- his family had a textile company, and when he came to the States, he became a textile salesman. My mother was a homemaker.
IG: 03:59
Okay, all right. And did they- did your parents go to college?
IG: 04:06
No.
IG: 04:07
Yeah. And what were their-
04:09
-and they did not pick it up when they got here.
IG: 04:12
I see what were their expectations for you in terms of college? Was education valued in your family?
AG: 04:20
It was they expected that I would go to college, and I did.
IG: 04:31
So can you elaborate a little bit? Were they supportive of your- I mean, did they help you study? Did they help you choose your college, or were they, yeah-
Speaker 2 04:46
It was, it was not a- an issue- was always assumed that it would go to college and we- they, you know, it was very different in those days. I just- my daughter just graduated from Colby, and the process of getting her situated in the school that she wanted to go with all the visits and the trips was very different. We went to visit Binghamton. I saw it. I do not think I visited any other schools. I chose it for a number of reasons. It had a good reputation. It was a state school. It was inexpensive. I had a regional scholarship, so it became less expensive, and there was not as much thought about it when I went to school, certainly as when my daughter weighed her options for which school she wanted to go to.
IG: 05:52
Okay, I-I-I- that was also the experience, my experience versus my daughter's, I think a lot more thought went into her college selection. So what was your experience at Harpur College?
AG: 06:18
It was-
IG: 06:19
Yeah.
AG: 06:20
I guess the best word I could use is bland.
IG: 06:23
Bland.
AG: 06:24
It was bland. It was, it was- I was not, you know, there was a lot going on in the (19)60s. I was not much of an activist. It was, it was a question of getting through my studies. I was not a superior student by any means my academic success came much later on, when I, when I proceeded, pursued my doctorate. I had a small group of friends and was not very much involved. I was involved with the radio station, so that was my extracurricular activity. And it was really a question of trying to find myself at that time.
IG: 07:05
Well, that is, I mean, these are all very interesting points, so maybe let us start with the most interesting to you, which was the radio station. Tell us about that.
AG: 07:19
It was, well, I was, I was looking for an extracurricular opportunity there as and all of the clubs and all of the other extracurricular activities, there was, you know, I guess there was a fair, or whatever it was they displayed. And it was, it was, I had never done that before. And it was, it was an interesting group of people, and we all got our FCC licenses, and that was where I spent most of the- my time that was not in class and in the library.
IG: 07:53
So the radio station was conducted from the library, the physical space?
AG: 07:58
No-no, It was conducted-
IG: 08:00
Oh, I see I misunderstood.
AG: 08:03
I was either in class or in the library study-
IG: 08:05
I see, I see I misunderstood. Okay, so I would like you to talk more about the radio station. Where was it located?
AG: 08:15
I think it was in the student center, if I remember correctly. And we had a- in those days was it was, I think while I was there, they expanded it, they bought a much more powerful transmitter, and I had many of my friends that I was close with and I met through the through the radio station.
Third speaker 08:45
Wait, what was it called?
AG: 08:47
WHRW.
Third speaker 08:49
Because it is still continuing, and I still listen. They play great music. New Age, different-
IG: 09:00
Oh.
Third speaker 09:00
Yeah, they do. I even listen some Turkish music there.
IG: 09:04
Oh wow, that is incredible.
Third speaker 09:06
Yes.
AG: 09:09
They still have reunions. I know that I did not go to my reunion. I went back to Binghamton a few years after I graduated, and I got lost on the campus, and that was the last time I went back.
AG: 09:20
I graduated in (19)67 maybe (19)71-(19)72. [crosstalk] you have to remember, if you look at an aerial photograph of the campus, there is a kidney shaped drive that goes around in the middle. That is all there was. And in those days, that kidney shaped drive that went around a number of the buildings, but that was the entire campus at that time, and then it expanded tremendously.
IG: 09:22
When was that?
IG: 09:55
Hmm. Yeah, that that is our impression from speaking with other graduates from-from this time, from the (19)60s, that it was kind of a, you know, a smaller, much smaller version um-um. of-of- it was, it was actually a different-different-different type of campus. It was very kind of bare bones. But returning to the- excuse me.
AG: 10:27
It was tiny.
IG: 10:28
It was tiny. But returning, I am really curious about the radio station. What role did you play? Was-was the- was it a sound studio? I mean, how- what-what was the equipment that you used?
AG: 10:42
I did not hear the question, was it a, what type of studio?
IG: 10:48
Sound studio, sound studio.
AG: 10:51
inaudible] It was- there was a, there was an office, and there was a, there was a- an on-air studio with offices, you know, an office around it, and wherever the trend, the transmitter was someplace else. And we- I did some of the, some administrative activities we all managed, helped manage it, and I did a little bit of on air announcing.
IG: 11:29
What kind of music did you play? What kind of talk shows did you have, if any?
AG: 11:35
[inaudible] talk shows. I did some-some music, some-some popular, current music and of the day.
IG: 11:43
So what, what was, you know, some of the-
AG: 11:46
Easy listening kind of stuff.
IG: 11:47
I see. It was, is that? So, what role did you have? Did you decide on, on what music was? Went on air?
AG: 11:58
Yeah, for those, for those few shows, and I was what they call the traffic manager, and now we are talking 50 years ago, so you are testing my memory.
IG: 12:09
I am. [laughs]
AG: 12:11
More than 50 years ago.
IG: 12:13
More than 50 years ago. Okay, so it was, it was really easy listening. There were no, there were no, there was not much reporting. Or did you do any reporting?
AG: 12:27
A little bit, we did a little bit of news. I think I filled in one night for-for somebody who, who did the news, who was not able to make his show. So I was, I was, I was a fill in for that night.
IG: 12:39
Was the news local, or was it national?
AG: 12:44
It was national.,
IG: 12:45
it was national.
AG: 12:46
National. Yeah.
IG: 12:47
So-
AG: 12:49
We had a UPI ticker. So we read the news from the UPI ticker that came in. We had a subscription to that. It was, it was a fairly well supported function.
IG: 13:04
How many were you?
AG: 13:08
Oh, I would not begin to try to remember that well.
IG: 13:12
Approximately. Was-was it 10? Was it two? Was it 100?
AG: 13:19
I would say that maybe involved in the in the station at that time, maybe there, there were 20 people.
IG: 13:24
I see. So, you, you do not remember what the news of the day was. What were the important discussions that were taking place during those years? Do-
AG: 13:37
Well, I was it was the Vietnam War, obviously. Was that- was this, the 67 war, these- in Israel was development of the State of Israel, the war. Those are the ones that that stand up.
IG: 13:58
Yeah, do you remember what you know, position, politically, the radio talk show hosts would take of the war. Were they- were you just neutrally reporting events? Or-
AG: 14:18
I do not remember.
IG: 14:19
You do not remember.
AG: 14:20
I would assume it was, it was an anti-war stance because of who we were, but I cannot conjure that out of my memory.
IG: 14:32
Right. That is understandable. So how many years did you spend on the radio? Was it your entire college career, or...? [crosstalk]
AG: 14:50
My college career was only three years, because I took advantage of the trimester system, I went, I went two summers, I should have graduated in (19)68. I graduated from high school in (19)64 but I went two summers and made up a full year that way.
IG: 15:10
That is pretty intense.
AG: 15:12
It was a mistake.
IG: 15:14
Yeah. So what was, what were your academics like? What did you study? What was your major?
AG: 15:23
Major was political science. I intended to go to law school. I went- had a year of law school, and then I would have been drafted. So at that time, there was- we were looking, everybody was looking for an option, and I became a New York City school teacher.
IG: 15:43
Oh.
AG: 15:44
I was in, I was in law school, and my mother called me up, and she said she and my friend's mother had gone down to the Board of Ed, and that they, they had, there was a teacher shortage, and they-they had a program which was called manpower channeling, so anybody became a teacher got a deferment. I spent, I think was five or six years teaching in elementary school, and I was already pursuing my-my doctorate at that time in public administration at NYU. What happened with that program is the city bought courses in all the local universities, and they paid for 12 credits for anybody who was accepted in that program was fairly competitive, as you can imagine, because-because it was all guys who were looking for an alternative to the draft. So I completed, they gave me 12 credits at NYU. I completed a master's in an education in 1970 and then I was very much interested in urban planning and enrolled in the- what is now the Wagner school for public service. Wagner that time known as the graduate school for public administration, and I was in that master's program for maybe a year or two, and they came out with a PhD MUP option, which is what I eventually graduated from.
IG: 17:38
Interesting. So while you were teaching, where did you teach? Which neighborhood?
AG: 17:45
In Marble Hill, in the Bronx.
IG: 17:46
In the what? Excuse me.
AG: 17:48
Marble Hill in the Bronx.
IG: 17:50
Oh, I know where that is- a beautiful museum. So returning to Harpur College, how- did-did- Was there any- do you remember any faculty at Harpur that made an impression on you?
AG: 18:12
Yeah, I remember, I- as a political science major. I was- I took many of the political science courses I but I the one that stands out most was an English teacher by the name of Sheldon Grebstein, who I eventually met later on he became the president of SUNY Purchase for a while since retired, but I was there, and I lived close by to that campus. I had a membership to their swimming pool, and I had met him before I was a senior, and I took his poetry clothes- course. There was also a political science professor by the name of Blair Ewing, who left there, whom I remembered because I was accused of having stolen his final exam.
IG: 19:12
And did you, did you?
AG: 19:17
I did not.
AG: 19:18
It was a, it was quite a, quite a traumatic- I was a very naive young man, and I had a- one of the best final exam schedules I ever had. It was a dream schedule. I was done on Wednesday, and I had a date in New York to see one of the other students at Harpur's, to go to Peter Paul and Mary concert. And I was home for a day, and I get a call from the Dean, and they say, "You have been implicated in a cheating scandal. You have been accused of having stolen Professor Ewing's final exam." "What-what are you? No, they did not tell me that." They just said that I had been implicated in a cheating scandal, and they wanted me to come back. So, I said, I am not coming back. I did not do anything. We will deal with it when I get back after semester break, so the phone goes back and forth and back and forth, and they got my attention when they told me I could have an attorney present.
IG: 19:18
You did not. [laughs]
IG: 20:31
That you could what?
AG: 20:34
That I could have an attorney present.
IG: 20:38
Oh-oh, wow, wow, that is serious.
AG: 20:41
That was serious. So, I said to the dean, "Give me the benefit of the doubt and assume that I have no idea what you are talking about," which I did not, "and tell me what I have been accused of, or I will not come back. Either give me some details," I said. They told me that I was holding up the entire classes grades. Remember very well it was, it was Blair Ewing's course in totalitarians, comparative totalitarian systems. And I said, you tell me "Why you think I did something, and then I will come back." So they said that I had been accused of having stolen an exam. I had broken into his office and stolen exam. And then I sort of started remembering I had spoken to a friend of mine who actually was the general manager of the radio station, and I had spoken to him previously, and he had, like most students do, give me the details of this professor's previous exams, and he never changed his exams, so the questions were familiar. And I called him up and I said, I this is what is going on. He was still on campus because he was, he was involved in some activities that that he needed to be there for. And I said, "Look, I do not want a character reference. I want you to write a letter to the dean and tell her detail exactly what you told me without any without any value judgment." So this also happened to me, my first plane flight ever. I get back up to campus, I go into the dean's office. Ewing is sitting there. First words he said to me. And I- you can remember, you can imagine how-how prominent this is in my memory, because I remember it exactly. 50,52, 53, years later, he looked at me said, "Mr. Grant, I do not think you cheated. You should have done better."
IG: 22:59
What an excellent response.
AG: 23:01
I said, "What did I get?" He said, "You got to be on the exam." So, I sit down, and there is a young woman who is sitting there, and I recognized her as a student in the class, and then I remembered that I had met her in the in the snack bar just before the exam, and I saw her studying for the exam, and I said to her, "Well, you, you should study these things, and this is going to be the-the format of the of the exam." So I was talking to her, she reported me for having stolen test.
IG: 23:34
How terrible.
Third speaker 23:35
Oh my god.
IG: 23:36
How terrible. How terrible.
AG: 23:38
She thought she had missed out on something. So, I said to them, first of all, you had the letter from-from Joe Breast who was the, who was the general manager of the radio station. His main name may be familiar with Columbia, if you were going through the records of those days, who he and I graduated again, look to the data. I said, "Is it considered absolute academic dishonesty to research previous exams?" They said, "Absolutely not." I said, "Is it my fault?" And I looked at him "that you never change your exam questions." And so they got a chuckle out of that. And then this student looked at me, and she said, "But you knew the exact format of the exam," and I said to her, "As would you had you not cut the class where he gave that to us in class?"
IG: 24:28
I am sorry. As- what did you tell her?
AG: 24:31
She-she had cut the class where he gave us the format.
IG: 24:35
I see. I see. I see. I see. I see. Oh, how terrible.
AG: 24:41
I said "Was there ever any evidence of your office having broken into it that somebody had taken your exam?" "No-no-no." I looked at them and said, "So, what am I doing here?" And they looked at me and they said, "Well, there was a good faith accusation, and we had to follow up." So, they paid all of my expenses and sent me on my way, and the dean looked at me, and she said, "Next time, do not be so forthcoming with information for somebody else."
IG: 25:13
What was the good faith student reprimanded?
AG: 25:18
Again, I never saw her again. She just she vanished from campus. I think she was embarrassed. I do not think they reprimanded her, because she felt that she had enough information to-to make that good faith accusation. But she-she was the kind of student who cut a lot of the classes and all the and he had given us a great deal of information about the exam, so that was kind of one of the highlights of my college experience. It was not a pleasant one, but it came out okay, but I did not realize in my naivete how close I was to being expelled.
IG: 25:56
But what I mean, it is just, it is awful. It is an awful experience that-that you know, reminds me of, of the time of Stalin, where, you know, neighbors would denounce each other. You know, but-
AG: 26:16
Certainly, the case Nazi Germany for my parents.
IG: 26:18
Yeah-yeah. Yes-yes. I mean, it is very, it is very similar, and but it must have been a really formative experience as well. Do you, do you- how do you think that that- I mean, it was a shock, probably to the system, and how did- what-what impact did it have on you?
AG: 26:38
It was, it was, really, was not a shock. Because I-I believe I did not do anything so there was nothing, there was nothing. There could be no consequences, because I did not do anything which is stupid. I become much more circumspect in terms of information I give at the people and what you know, what I say, I felt I looked at them and I said, we could have done this on the phone.
IG: 27:06
Yeah.
AG: 27:08
If there was no evidence of any breach, we could have done it on the phone and-and have saved ourselves all of this time, expense and-and stress, [crosstalk] much more cautious person. I am- I certainly have disabused myself of the notion that-that being innocent protects you so that those- that was, that was, in fact, a formative experience.
Third speaker 27:39
When did that happen? Were you a sophomore, freshman? Would-
AG: 27:43
I think it was a sophomore.
AG: 27:45
No.
IG: 27:45
No, it is okay. It is all right.
IG: 27:45
Do you remember the Dean's name?
AG: 27:52
I remember the professor's name. He certainly can.
IG: 27:55
Yeah.
AG: 27:55
I am sure that is in the annals someplace.
IG: 27:58
Well, so you were a sophomore, you returned for your junior year? What did your friends say about this incident? Do you remember?
AG: 28:08
They just shook their heads. I said, you know this thing, it was, it was just, it was just, you know, kind of bureaucratic stupidity. If they told me what they needed to know on the phone I would have, it would have jogged my memory, and I was about this. I do not remember her name anymore. I said I had a conver- [his phone rings] Hold one second. Okay.
IG: 28:34
Okay.
AG: 28:35
That was my-my cell phone. My cell phone goes through my computer, so.
IG: 28:44
I see, I see, okay, so, um, how do you think-
AG: 28:51
I tried to close because it is if I, if I disconnect by accident, I will call you back.
IG: 28:58
All right, that is fine, sure. That is fine, but you still have a little bit of time.
AG: 29:04
Yeah, we are good. Okay, good. I close it and you are still there.
IG: 29:08
Okay, very good. So how do you think your classmates remember you, if they were to tell me, those-those who remember, and those, for example, those you worked with on the radio? How would they describe you?
AG: 29:28
Not sure I think they would describe me as that is hard to put-put into words that they were required to describe me as, you know, nice guy, not a, not a not a great student, not somebody who was, who was very involved and in any kind of political activity or any kind of activism, somebody who was, you know, we were kind of just there and good friend, but I have not really kept in touch with anybody from-from Binghamton at all.
IG: 30:13
You have not?
AG: 30:15
I have not.
IG: 30:15
You have not.
AG: 30:18
I tend not to do that. I tend to move on from one-one experience to the next very small circle of friends from, you know, different-different stages of my life. What is, what is amusing at-at this point is I have recently, become through Facebook, got connected with a group of friends from high school. I have, I have a distant cousin who I have been friendly with, and I was on his Facebook page, and there was a friend of his who looked familiar. His name was familiar. And I wrote him. I said, "Are you the same David who went to Clinton High School?" And he said, "Yes," and we had put together. There are five, five couples who all went to high school together, except my cousin. My cousin did not go to high school with me, but he met many of my high school friends at City College, where he went. So we now have a group of five couples who we meet every three or four months, and we go out to dinner, to a theater, to a Broadway production. And that predates. That is certainly from, from that era.
IG: 31:46
That is, that is very nice. I wonder if I know of other couples who from Binghamton who see each other annually. They have reunions in different parts of the Northeast. So just tell me a little bit about campus life. You know, the majority of students were like you from New York City or Long Island. And then there were some students from upstate New York. Did you notice differences between these you know, city-city folk and townies, they were called, I think.
AG: 32:33
I remember one, one of my one of my friends, was he was convinced that Jews had horns. That is how he grew up and-and his exposure to a lot of the New York students and a lot of the Jewish students was-was a kind of an eye opener for him. So yeah, we found a lot of, a lot of the upstate students a little bit provincial when I- before I got there, and my-my housing preferences, I put down that I did not want to.- I would prefer to room with somebody outside the area that came from. And I did that, and I had a roommate. We did not get to be good friends. And then through the radio station, I met some other people, and eventually roamed with them. And they were from -from the New York area, also from Westchester. And then eventually, my senior year, over junior, senior year, I got a single.
IG: 33:38
So do you- did your impression of students from upstate- I mean, you mentioned that there was a cultural difference between New Yorkers and, you know, upstate New Yorkers. Did you, did your impression of upstate New Yorkers change over the time that you were at Harpur?
AG: 34:05
I got friendly with people. I, yeah, there was one I- we exchanged visits during vacation. So a number of people come home to New York with me and show them New York. I went to their homes and-
IG: 34:19
Where? In Binghamton or?
AG: 34:22
No, upstate, and that now these were not people who these were all people within the dorms, I said, people who were local. I see. And we, you know, we realized we had more in common than we had differences, as is typical when you put different cultural groups together.
IG: 34:45
Yes-yes, I agree. So tell me a little bit about more about your free time on campus. Did you spend it all at the radio station? Or did you hang out with your friends in the dorm? Or, how did you spend-
AG: 35:04
Partially, even the radio station, mostly hanging out with friends in the dorm, doing, you know, going to movies. I- nothing really stands out.
IG: 35:16
Yeah.
AG: 35:17
As-as you know, spectacular. We- it was, it was very much a lot of my-my friends were pre-med and pre law, as I was, and we did a lot of it was, there was a lot of- and we mostly were, were studious, and that was a reputation of the institution in those days, and I still, I think it is still the reputation of the institution that it is, it is certainly not a party school. It was very much a place where people paid attention to their studies, spent time in the library, and yet spent some time, you know, dating and going on dates and going out to dinner and campus events when there were performances, but that was pretty much it.
IG: 36:10
So, how did you get around? Did somebody have a car, or did you take a bus?
AG: 36:18
[inaudible] The- you know, the under the underclass years there were, there was transportation into town. Some people have had cars. There was a, there was a shopping mall within walking distance, right- next to campus. So wanted to go shopping. A good while they would walk. Some people had cars. We would go. There was a I am sure it is still there. I think it is still there. We did not go out with some of us went out to bars. We were not heavy drinkers. We were more when we went out. It was more to a place called Pat Mitchell's, which was an ice cream place. We would go out and we would, we would have ice cream, and there were weekend nights, sometimes we would go out drinking and in the bars. In those days, drinking age in New York was 18, so it was much easier to-to go out and socialize that way.
IG: 37:32
I wanted to ask, were there women who worked on the radio?
AG: 37:38
Yes-yes.
IG: 37:40
Yes. Um, were- you know, do you think that there were different expectations for men than there were for women, or did the women who worked on the radio serious about what they were doing and maybe thinking of a career in radio?
AG: 38:03
I do not really think, except for one person who became a journalist, I really do not think that anybody expected to make a career out of this, certainly not the people that I was close to. And no, I do not believe that the expectations for the women were any different for the men. Also the women who wanted to be on air. Broadcasters certainly had the opportunity to do that, and it may have been a question that I was not astute enough for any kind of discrimination as far as that was concerned. But I certainly the women who were interested in doing whatever they wanted to do on that particular extracurricular activity had ample opportunity to do it, and did and did so.
IG: 38:58
it is interesting. So you know what looking back, what lessons do you think you learned from this time, including your unfortunate brush with this false accusation? What lessons did you learn from this time in your life? I mean, there are probably several, you know, because you spoke about, you know, the impact that the false accusation had on you. But what would you say? What did, what did this experience give you?
AG: 39:38
The college experience?
IG: 39:39
Yes.
IG: 39:40
Or?
IG: 39:41
Yeah, in a broader sense, not just a degree.
AG: 39:44
It certainly was-was for the first time, I was away from home, and I was determined I had the same, I had the same offer that many of my friends did if I went. To City College, my parents would buy me a car. I said, keep your car. You know, the Holocaust families were very overprotective, and there was a friend of mine later said, you know somebody I had met. Much later, he said he went, he went swimming and got wet, off to your ankles. They sent out the lifeguards, my parents, my parents drove me up and we were 50 miles outside of Binghamton. She said, "You know, you can still go to City College."
IG: 40:42
They were more comfortable with that alternative.
AG: 40:45
Yeah. The irony was that I had a friend who did exactly that and was killed in an automobile accident while he was, while he was in it was going to City College. So you never know. You just never know.
IG: 40:58
You really never know.
AG: 40:59
It gives you, yeah, I think, I think that whole experience was, I did not come out. You know, everybody comes out of those experiences different. But I, you know, it was an experience. I-I-I, when I was in graduate school, I look back and I said, it is you really need to apply yourself a little bit more to your studies than you did when you were in school. It was a question of trying to find out, find my find-find out who I was as an individual. I got part of the way there, but [crosstalk]
IG: 41:34
What did you, yeah, find out about yourself as an individual from that short period for from those three years?
AG: 41:45
that I was, that I was very much a solitary kind of individual. I know that when my father was a road salesman, and he would leave on Monday, he still had institutional textiles, and he had a fairly broad territory, which included the Adirondacks and his- many times during school vacations. When I was in high school, our vacation where we would go along with him, we go up to-to the resort areas, and sometimes he took me along by myself. And I remember thinking to myself, What a horrible, lonely existence this is. And later on in life, I find, I found, I learned the difference between loneliness and solitude. And although, you know, I married, I have a family, but there are, there are many times, right- My wife is still working, and I cherish the time that-that I have to myself. You know, it is kind of a transition when you retire, and I was worried about filling the time that I am reading. One of the things that-that happened in Binghamton was that that I was not very much of a reader. I had difficulty in talking to people about current events other than what was going on classes. I remember I once went gone with a friend to his home, and they had-had a very animated political discussion, and I had really had nothing to say. I was very quiet, and I went to a counselor when I was in law school, and he looked at me, and I feel I often have nothing to offer intellectually. And he said, "Well, do you read?" I said, "Well, you know, do subscribe to magazines?" And at that time, I started reading for pleasure and for information. And I am, sometimes I am reading two, three books at the same time, thanks to my Kindle switching back and forth, and I very much value the time that I have to myself. You know, I did not realize that when I was at school as an undergraduate, but certainly developed that I was I always you know, found myself many times. I found myself doing things by myself, and realized later on that, well, you know, you-you, you know how to be your own best company. And that is, that is a very, very valuable lesson to learn.
IG: 44:38
It is a valuable a lesson to learn. I am just wondering you spoke. [crosstalk] Yeah.
AG: 44:46
I kind of came late to things throughout my whole life. My daughter was born. I was 49 when I had, when I had, she was an only child. I think that makes you better parent, certainly a mature-mature parents, because you are done building your career and-and have a wonderful relationship with her now. So it is, it is better late than never [inaudible]
IG: 45:15
And just-just remind us, well for the record, your career was in development, or um-
AG: 45:24
I started out as a New York City school teacher.
IG: 45:27
Yes.
AG: 45:28
And as I am fond of saying, it was the second to the last place in the world, I wanted to be, as I told you earlier.
IG: 45:35
Yes.
AG: 45:36
Vietnam was last, and I had a- was in the school, and one of my colleagues in the school got a job at the Central Headquarters of the New York City school system. And he was in the federal- he got a job in the federal aid office. And at that time, I was taking a course at NYU and Intergovernmental Relations. And I said to him, you know, I am taking a course in that sounds really interesting. And if anything opens up in that office, give me a call. I would be interested in pursuing it. And he did, and I went down there. It was a everybody said, "Do not do it. It is a dead-end job." That office was a, I do not, we do not have enough time to explain the city school system to you at that time, but it was a liaison. It was, it was a, really, a glorified clerk of being a liaison between the city school district and the, and the State Education Department for the compensatory education program. So, we reviewed the-the entitlement program applications that went up, they were not competitive then, and if there were anything, if there was anything in that application that the state wanted modified, we acted as liaison. That- I did that for about a year and a half, which brought us to 1975 and there was a- our suit, our superintendent. She was an old-line superintendent, and we were bringing in $400 million in competitive compensatory education at that time in the 1970s.
IG: 47:25
That is huge. Yeah.
AG: 47:28
And they- there was a there was a recognition that that as a central entity, as a school district, we were not making a great enough effort to go after some of the smaller competitive programs, some of the small competitive grant programs. And they wanted a wanted to form a unit which was sort of like an in-house consultant, grants consultant unit. There were 32 districts and a number of central divisions, and we were there to help them mount competitive applications get more money, as a matter of fact, that is what my dissertation turned out to be. And in terms of competitive- how the competitive grant system works, but in 1975 there was a devastating fiscal crisis in New York City. There was a hiring freeze. Nobody could hire anybody, and so this superintendent formed this little unit, and anybody who could make a paragraph out of two sentences got drafted. We were very small. We started out and we were, we were unsuccessful for three years, and only because she was unwilling to admit that she had made an error, that she let us continue. And then once we-we had some breakthrough, very significant grants that-that-that that unit took off, and we had a wonderful reputation, we-
IG: 49:06
State from the state of New York grants or?
AG: 49:06
Federal government, state in New York. And then later on, I had, I became the director of that unit, and we started reaching out. We had a new superintendent who new chancellor, who opened up. It was like opening up the windows and waiting the air in. And we started going after private foundation money. And I initiated and spearheaded that drive. I remember I was I got a meeting at it with a foundation executive, and she looked at me and she said, "We would never fund you. I was just so astonished that there was an actual human being who called me up." But before we got done, we were bringing in money from foundations. And I- as I was finishing my doctorate, I was interested in moving on into higher-higher I guess that that was perhaps a holdover from my experience at Binghamton, because all I ever wanted to do in my career was go back and be on a college campus, which I started it I started at Hofstra University, and I have been in and out of education, higher education, elementary and secondary, initially higher education. I had a few jobs in healthcare, long term care, and major medical centers. My foray into healthcare was-was everybody has at least one train wreck in their career. That was mine, and then I wound up back in, back at higher ed.
IG: 49:09
Okay, that is, that is very interesting. So, I am just, you know, I am latching on to something that you said in the past, that you, you know, you are a child of Holocaust survivors. Did you connect with any other students at Harpur College who had the same background?
AG: 49:09
I did not.
IG: 49:09
You did not. You did not find anyone who was like that.
AG: 49:09
Most of my friends were very much American. I grew up in a community where everybody was of that background.
IG: 50:15
Yeah.
AG: 50:15
I was 10 years old. My parents moved to the Bronx and to Riverdale, and I had, a I had one friend that I gravitated to who happened to live in my building, and his parents also- There was a number of families in that building with the same background, but at Binghamton, I did not connect with anybody, nor did I know of anybody who had that background,
IG: 52:09
Because they were not first generation like you were. You are first generation American.
AG: 52:16
I am.
IG: 52:17
Yeah.
AG: 52:17
I am. And most of the people that I knew there were not.
IG: 52:21
Yeah, that is, that is very interesting.
AG: 52:24
American first-first in my family, to go to college.
IG: 52:28
Yeah.
AG: 52:28
Yeah, immediate family.
IG: 52:31
That is remarkable. What you know- what were the most important lessons you-you have learned in life that you would like to share with future Binghamton students who are listening to this recording years from now, what advice do you have to give to them.
AG: 53:05
I think part of it is to is to be serious about your studies, but have fun while you are doing it. Again, I kind of relived part of my-my undergraduate experience, and also had experiences that I did not have through my daughter in her and her undergraduate time. Spent a lot of time visiting with her and going to, going to, certainly the first apparent Parents Weekend was-was a highlight, which my parents never did. They dropped me off and dropped me off, and anytime I came home, I made my own arrangements, whereas my daughter we were, we drove up, picked her. She had a car all four years, but there was never enough room in her car for her to come home by herself. So we were back and forth many times. And I cherish that, because I loved it. Matter of fact, when she went to school, I saw the piles building I left, I left home to go to Binghamton with a suitcase. As I saw her collecting the material that she was going to cut the mattress covers the all of the stuff and the bins and things, I said to my wife, I am buying a plane ticket. She said, ridiculous. I said, “I see what you are putting together. I am not fitting into this car. Oh, do not be ridiculous. That is, that is stupid. It is a waste of money.” I said “I bought a plane ticket,” and sure enough, there was. There was no room for me in this car. So I flew up to Portland Maine and rented a car because they drove up, we met and then. My daughter kept the car that she was driving up there and we drove back. But it was, it is just such a totally different experience today. So, somebody who graduated in 1967 I do not even know what I what advice I would have given to my daughter.
IG: 55:14
I see, but I mean, you did give advice. Study very hard. Have fun. Yeah, I think, I think those lessons hold true from generation to generation.
AG: 55:27
She was always-always a kind of a student who was intrinsically motivated. This is a kid who she graduated, summa cum laude, phi, beta, kappa, Colby College. That is quite an achievement. And as-as self-possessed a person at her age as I never was, and I look at her in awe, because the what she knows about herself and her, her, her goals and her-her ability to pursue those goals. It was not anything that I never picked that up until much, much, much later.
IG: 56:11
Well, you had a different upbringing than your daughter. That is very different.
AG: 56:16
I never wanted to be the parent my parents were. Yeah, as I think most people would admit to- I do not think you know, there is an old saying, first to become yourself, and then you become your parents.
IG: 56:32
Yes-yes, oh, I have never heard that expression that is very good. Yeah.
AG: 56:38
When you think about it, it is alarmingly accurate.
IG: 56:44
So in which way have you become like your parents?
AG: 56:49
I am more overprotective than I should be, and my wife counter balances that, because she is not. She is much more, you know, permissive in terms of what my daughter so there was good balance. You know, we try to keep her safe, but, but she has to learn her-her own. She has to find her own way in life, which-which my parents kind of never got. So she fell in love with Maine, and she decided that all she had, the credentials she could have, she could have pretty much done anything she wanted. And one of the, one of the, one of the things that she did she was on, she was a psychology major. She was on her way to applying for PhD in clinical psych. And I knew, I know the first one of the things that she did at Colby. Colby has what they call Jan plan. You have you take a full course in-in a January semester. You can either make your own class, you can take a standard course. So her first course in January, she became an EMT, and she eventually was one of the one among the leaders of the EMT squad on campus. She was an EMT on the COVID campus for her entire years, and she was going to go and the be a clinical psychologist and get a PhD. I always knew from watching her that she-she was the kind of person who needed to be on front lines, kind of a first responder, not really an academic, and she had her mentor arranged for an internship for her summers. And she had an internship. She went the first summer, and then the second summer, she came home. The middle of it, she said, I do not want to do this seriously my life, which is kind of a wonderful outcome for an internship, because she could have been down the road to a PhD, and then found out she did not really want to. I want to have that kind of an experience.
IG: 59:02
She sounds like a girl who knows her mind.
AG: 59:05
And she is now at the University of New England. She is pursuing a nursing degree. As I said, we were tearing her hair out because we thought she should go to medical school. She says, I do not want anything to do with being a doctor. That is not what I want. I want to be a nurse practitioner. So, she is in now, in a program, a 16-month program for students who already have a bachelor's in something else, and she will come out with a BSN and an RN, and then pursue a career in as a nurse practitioner.
IG: 59:37
You know that Binghamton is starting up a PhD program in nursing.
AG: 59:45
I can see her eventually going through. I will mention it to her.
IG: 59:53
Yeah. Mention it. I think that this program is beginning in 2020.
Third speaker 59:57
Yeah. And I think Binghamton has a. Very strong nursing program.
AG: 1:00:02
Yeah, she did not want to follow in my footsteps,
IG: 1:00:11
As most children do not. So, yeah.
AG: 1:00:14
One of the more amusing things that we when we went to the Colby Information Center session, there was a very engaging student who presented, and he said, "My- I am a legacy student. My parents met at Colby." And he said, "First visit, I hated it. I wanted nothing to do with it, and they prevailed on me to come back." And he said, "My parents realized that they were giving me their experience, and when they went, what they did was they let me explore the campus on my own, and then I enrolled, and I loved it." So, it is again, it is question she-she eventually may seek that out, but, but she does not want to come back to New York. She loves Maine, and that was her criteria for-for a college campus, it had to be rural, it had to be a self-contained campus. It had to be a small liberal arts school need to be [inaudible] all of which she got.
AG: 1:00:16
But it is close enough to New York.
AG: 1:01:26
Yeah, and none of which I knew about myself at that time.
IG: 1:01:30
Do you have any concluding remarks for us?
AG: 1:01:35
In terms of-of what you are doing with-with the (19)60s? I do not know I would be interested in seeing how typical my experience is. And I guess some of these interviews, or all these interviews, are going to be available online some point. So, I would hope that you would send out the links for that so that we could, we could watch each other and well, I have not kept in touch with any of my classmates from those days, a few of them on LinkedIn and Facebook, perhaps, but I would like to see what their responses are.
IG: 1:02:14
Right. Because in conducting these interviews, there are commonalities, you know, but-but I think that every-every experience is very different. So I think that you will be very gratified to hear the interviews of your classmates.
AG: 1:02:33
At Binghamton--you cannot even it is so different that you cannot even call it the same school. Those of us who were there when I was this was an incipient, brand-new school. It was, and I was among, certainly, probably among the first students, first years where it was, where moved from Triple Cities College to the current campus at that time, it was, again, as I said, very small. So if you look at it today, there is, there is no comparison. It is, it is, it is like comparing something like Colby to Penn State, just a totally different [crosstalk]. Harpur College was a small liberal arts institution. Was nothing else. There was no graduate school. There was there was, it was, you know, it was Harpur College. That only happened after I was after I graduated. So that to make comparisons with those with the students of my day and the students who are there today, it is just too different a place.
IG: 1:03:42
Well, that is why I think it is- yes, and you experienced the (19)60s, which students today are not. So, it was really, you were a pioneer in-in terms of, you know, being a one, one of the-the first graduating years from this institution. But you were also living in very different times, you know. And that is why we are conducting these interviews, and that is why we are creating this center, virtual center.
AG: 1:04:18
If I had to do it over again, I would never, I would not go back to Binghamton.
AG: 1:04:22
You would not?
AG: 1:04:24
I would have not given my background. I found it; it was-
IG: 1:04:28
Where would you go?
AG: 1:04:30
-it was, and what I know about myself today.
IG: 1:04:35
Yes,
AG: 1:04:35
That I did not. I probably would have gone to school in Boston in a more urban environment Boston. And I did not have grades to get into, into the Ivy Leagues, but certainly a Boston University, a school that had much more of-of a social component that Harpur College that I would, I think that probably would have brought me out a little bit more than-than the experiences that I had where there was the sameness of the students in terms of their-their academic aspirations, there was that certainly was partying, but the social component was weak, and I probably could have benefited from a school that had a had a more structured, more extensive social component, not that I wanted to be in a fraternity or anything which was, which was not my thing. I do not know my daughter also we-we went to on our visits. We were we drove up to Colgate. She was one of the schools. She first thing you see when you drive to Colgate is Fraternity Row. And she looked at us, get me out of here.
IG: 1:05:45
Yeah.
AG: 1:05:46
The reason she chose Colby is because I had eliminated Greek life many years ago.
IG: 1:05:58
Right. Well, that is all very interesting, and it is- we will be in touch with you and let you know about the progress of the website of the center and when your interviews will be digitized and put up online.
AG: 1:06:19
Where are you at the beginning, the middle, the end. Terms of-
IG: 1:06:23
We are I think we think-
Third speaker 1:06:25
You are the ninth, the ninth informant that we interviewed so far.
IG: 1:06:32
-to do another eight. It is just, Aynur, and me, we are going to do another eight in the next couple of weeks. So, I think that, you know, as soon as-as we are going along, we are going to put up these interviews, each are an hour an hour half long.
AG: 1:06:52
Let me know as I sent you an email. I think coming from a development office, as-as given all my years of experience in development, I think that was a deterrent. I almost deleted your message.
IG: 1:07:04
Well, what could I do? I mean, I was given this assignment, given my reporting background, and should I write, perhaps, that I am a reporter for, I was a reporter for Fortune Magazine, but I am not anymore.
AG: 1:07:18
But I think, I think coming from a development office gives the wrong impression.
IG: 1:07:23
I will let the Dean know. I will let the Dean know. I am also, you know, I will. I will, you know, I think that you have a very valid point.
IG: 1:07:32
Okay, that-that is a very that is very good advice. I do not know how much I can do about it, but I agree with you.
AG: 1:07:32
I have been a VET Development Professional one way or another my entire career, and maybe I picked up on it because, okay, it is coming from a development office. They want to this is a pre solicitation gimmick, and I really do not want any part of it. And then I researched the- I looked up the center online. I saw that it was a legitimate thing, connected with you on LinkedIn. I think yours, your email signature. It should not be coming from a development officer or just my two cents.
AG: 1:07:38
Well, you have another title, and that is=
AG: 1:07:53
Not here, not here, it is not here. I can just leave it out, maybe the Development Office part,
AG: 1:08:25
but yeah, because it is not relevant, [crosstalk] development officer,
IG: 1:08:32
Maybe it could come from you. All right, well, we will figure it out, but you have certainly given us food for thought, and thank you so much for a great interview.
IG: 1:08:43
All right, thank you. I appreciate you reaching out.
(End of Interview)
Interview with: Andrew Grant
Interviewed by: Irene Gashurov
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 14 February 2018
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
IG: 00:00
Where are you, if I may ask? Are you at home or in your office?
AG: 00:04
I do not have an office. I am retired.
IG: 00:06
Oh!
AG: 00:07
On January 2.
IG: 00:09
Could you- well, congratulations on your retirement. We just want to make you a little bit louder. I am-
Third speaker 00:15
Okay. This is, I think, the loudest.
IG: 00:19
That is the loudest it can go?
IG: 00:20
do I need to do that? Or you do that? Yeah, it does. It does not get louder, yeah, can you? Can you do it from your end? Dr, Chris,
AG: 00:31
I do not think so. I think my volume control is only- my machine,
Third speaker 00:37
Yeah.
AG: 00:37
Is that better, or no?
IG: 00:40
I think so. I think so, okay, okay, so why do not we begin, um-
AG: 00:48
[inaudible] you need to move a little bit more together so I can see.
IG: 00:54
Okay-okay, so we are not-
Third speaker 00:58
Okay, okay, I will just-
IG: 01:00
I am just looking through my notes. That is, that is why I moved away. Okay, so why do not we begin with you identifying yourself when you were born, what you do and when you went to Binghamton,
AG: 01:27
What was the last one?
IG: 01:29
When you went to Binghamton? Or we could ask that later.
AG: 01:34
Okay. My name is Andrew grant. I was born in November of 1946. I went to Binghamton. I graduated in 1967.
IG: 01:46
Okay, very good. So where did you grow up?
AG: 01:51
In Manhattan and the Bronx.
IG: 01:54
Oh, may I ask where in Manhattan?
AG: 01:58
In Washington Heights.
IG: 01:59
Oh, I lived in Washington Heights.
AG: 02:02
Where?
IG: 02:04
By Fort Tryon Park.
AG: 02:05
Yeah, that is where I lived.
IG: 02:07
Okay, 1/80 and Fort Washington Avenue in probably the most beautiful apartment building and apartment that I have ever lived in. It was beautiful, Art Deco.
AG: 02:24
Yeah, I was, we were on 1/90 and Hillside.
Speaker 1 02:27
Okay,
AG: 02:27
At the lower at the lower end of the park, my sister actually still has an apartment up there.
IG: 02:31
Oh! Well, um, yeah, I am familiar with that area very well, and a lot of my Russian emigre friends lived there. There was a big Russian community in Washington Heights, but that is, that is after your time.
AG: 02:52
That is after my time. My time was, it was many Holocaust survivors, as-as-as was my family.
IG: 03:02
Yeah, okay. These were, these were refuseniks who came to the US in the late (19)70s and early (19)80s. A lot of-
AG: 03:15
My parents. My parents came from Germany in 1940.
IG: 03:18
Okay-okay, all right, so and who were your parents?
AG: 03:25
Who were they? Who were my- the names?
IG: 03:27
What you can tell us their names, what did they do? What was their occupation? Where were they from? You mentioned this briefly. They were from Germany. They came in 1940. What did they do in Germany? What did they do in the United States? What was their occupation?
AG: 03:47
My father, my father had a- his family had a textile company, and when he came to the States, he became a textile salesman. My mother was a homemaker.
IG: 03:59
Okay, all right. And did they- did your parents go to college?
IG: 04:06
No.
IG: 04:07
Yeah. And what were their-
04:09
-and they did not pick it up when they got here.
IG: 04:12
I see what were their expectations for you in terms of college? Was education valued in your family?
AG: 04:20
It was they expected that I would go to college, and I did.
IG: 04:31
So can you elaborate a little bit? Were they supportive of your- I mean, did they help you study? Did they help you choose your college, or were they, yeah-
Speaker 2 04:46
It was, it was not a- an issue- was always assumed that it would go to college and we- they, you know, it was very different in those days. I just- my daughter just graduated from Colby, and the process of getting her situated in the school that she wanted to go with all the visits and the trips was very different. We went to visit Binghamton. I saw it. I do not think I visited any other schools. I chose it for a number of reasons. It had a good reputation. It was a state school. It was inexpensive. I had a regional scholarship, so it became less expensive, and there was not as much thought about it when I went to school, certainly as when my daughter weighed her options for which school she wanted to go to.
IG: 05:52
Okay, I-I-I- that was also the experience, my experience versus my daughter's, I think a lot more thought went into her college selection. So what was your experience at Harpur College?
AG: 06:18
It was-
IG: 06:19
Yeah.
AG: 06:20
I guess the best word I could use is bland.
IG: 06:23
Bland.
AG: 06:24
It was bland. It was, it was- I was not, you know, there was a lot going on in the (19)60s. I was not much of an activist. It was, it was a question of getting through my studies. I was not a superior student by any means my academic success came much later on, when I, when I proceeded, pursued my doctorate. I had a small group of friends and was not very much involved. I was involved with the radio station, so that was my extracurricular activity. And it was really a question of trying to find myself at that time.
IG: 07:05
Well, that is, I mean, these are all very interesting points, so maybe let us start with the most interesting to you, which was the radio station. Tell us about that.
AG: 07:19
It was, well, I was, I was looking for an extracurricular opportunity there as and all of the clubs and all of the other extracurricular activities, there was, you know, I guess there was a fair, or whatever it was they displayed. And it was, it was, I had never done that before. And it was, it was an interesting group of people, and we all got our FCC licenses, and that was where I spent most of the- my time that was not in class and in the library.
IG: 07:53
So the radio station was conducted from the library, the physical space?
AG: 07:58
No-no, It was conducted-
IG: 08:00
Oh, I see I misunderstood.
AG: 08:03
I was either in class or in the library study-
IG: 08:05
I see, I see I misunderstood. Okay, so I would like you to talk more about the radio station. Where was it located?
AG: 08:15
I think it was in the student center, if I remember correctly. And we had a- in those days was it was, I think while I was there, they expanded it, they bought a much more powerful transmitter, and I had many of my friends that I was close with and I met through the through the radio station.
Third speaker 08:45
Wait, what was it called?
AG: 08:47
WHRW.
Third speaker 08:49
Because it is still continuing, and I still listen. They play great music. New Age, different-
IG: 09:00
Oh.
Third speaker 09:00
Yeah, they do. I even listen some Turkish music there.
IG: 09:04
Oh wow, that is incredible.
Third speaker 09:06
Yes.
AG: 09:09
They still have reunions. I know that I did not go to my reunion. I went back to Binghamton a few years after I graduated, and I got lost on the campus, and that was the last time I went back.
AG: 09:20
I graduated in (19)67 maybe (19)71-(19)72. [crosstalk] you have to remember, if you look at an aerial photograph of the campus, there is a kidney shaped drive that goes around in the middle. That is all there was. And in those days, that kidney shaped drive that went around a number of the buildings, but that was the entire campus at that time, and then it expanded tremendously.
IG: 09:22
When was that?
IG: 09:55
Hmm. Yeah, that that is our impression from speaking with other graduates from-from this time, from the (19)60s, that it was kind of a, you know, a smaller, much smaller version um-um. of-of- it was, it was actually a different-different-different type of campus. It was very kind of bare bones. But returning to the- excuse me.
AG: 10:27
It was tiny.
IG: 10:28
It was tiny. But returning, I am really curious about the radio station. What role did you play? Was-was the- was it a sound studio? I mean, how- what-what was the equipment that you used?
AG: 10:42
I did not hear the question, was it a, what type of studio?
IG: 10:48
Sound studio, sound studio.
AG: 10:51
inaudible] It was- there was a, there was an office, and there was a, there was a- an on-air studio with offices, you know, an office around it, and wherever the trend, the transmitter was someplace else. And we- I did some of the, some administrative activities we all managed, helped manage it, and I did a little bit of on air announcing.
IG: 11:29
What kind of music did you play? What kind of talk shows did you have, if any?
AG: 11:35
[inaudible] talk shows. I did some-some music, some-some popular, current music and of the day.
IG: 11:43
So what, what was, you know, some of the-
AG: 11:46
Easy listening kind of stuff.
IG: 11:47
I see. It was, is that? So, what role did you have? Did you decide on, on what music was? Went on air?
AG: 11:58
Yeah, for those, for those few shows, and I was what they call the traffic manager, and now we are talking 50 years ago, so you are testing my memory.
IG: 12:09
I am. [laughs]
AG: 12:11
More than 50 years ago.
IG: 12:13
More than 50 years ago. Okay, so it was, it was really easy listening. There were no, there were no, there was not much reporting. Or did you do any reporting?
AG: 12:27
A little bit, we did a little bit of news. I think I filled in one night for-for somebody who, who did the news, who was not able to make his show. So I was, I was, I was a fill in for that night.
IG: 12:39
Was the news local, or was it national?
AG: 12:44
It was national.,
IG: 12:45
it was national.
AG: 12:46
National. Yeah.
IG: 12:47
So-
AG: 12:49
We had a UPI ticker. So we read the news from the UPI ticker that came in. We had a subscription to that. It was, it was a fairly well supported function.
IG: 13:04
How many were you?
AG: 13:08
Oh, I would not begin to try to remember that well.
IG: 13:12
Approximately. Was-was it 10? Was it two? Was it 100?
AG: 13:19
I would say that maybe involved in the in the station at that time, maybe there, there were 20 people.
IG: 13:24
I see. So, you, you do not remember what the news of the day was. What were the important discussions that were taking place during those years? Do-
AG: 13:37
Well, I was it was the Vietnam War, obviously. Was that- was this, the 67 war, these- in Israel was development of the State of Israel, the war. Those are the ones that that stand up.
IG: 13:58
Yeah, do you remember what you know, position, politically, the radio talk show hosts would take of the war. Were they- were you just neutrally reporting events? Or-
AG: 14:18
I do not remember.
IG: 14:19
You do not remember.
AG: 14:20
I would assume it was, it was an anti-war stance because of who we were, but I cannot conjure that out of my memory.
IG: 14:32
Right. That is understandable. So how many years did you spend on the radio? Was it your entire college career, or...? [crosstalk]
AG: 14:50
My college career was only three years, because I took advantage of the trimester system, I went, I went two summers, I should have graduated in (19)68. I graduated from high school in (19)64 but I went two summers and made up a full year that way.
IG: 15:10
That is pretty intense.
AG: 15:12
It was a mistake.
IG: 15:14
Yeah. So what was, what were your academics like? What did you study? What was your major?
AG: 15:23
Major was political science. I intended to go to law school. I went- had a year of law school, and then I would have been drafted. So at that time, there was- we were looking, everybody was looking for an option, and I became a New York City school teacher.
IG: 15:43
Oh.
AG: 15:44
I was in, I was in law school, and my mother called me up, and she said she and my friend's mother had gone down to the Board of Ed, and that they, they had, there was a teacher shortage, and they-they had a program which was called manpower channeling, so anybody became a teacher got a deferment. I spent, I think was five or six years teaching in elementary school, and I was already pursuing my-my doctorate at that time in public administration at NYU. What happened with that program is the city bought courses in all the local universities, and they paid for 12 credits for anybody who was accepted in that program was fairly competitive, as you can imagine, because-because it was all guys who were looking for an alternative to the draft. So I completed, they gave me 12 credits at NYU. I completed a master's in an education in 1970 and then I was very much interested in urban planning and enrolled in the- what is now the Wagner school for public service. Wagner that time known as the graduate school for public administration, and I was in that master's program for maybe a year or two, and they came out with a PhD MUP option, which is what I eventually graduated from.
IG: 17:38
Interesting. So while you were teaching, where did you teach? Which neighborhood?
AG: 17:45
In Marble Hill, in the Bronx.
IG: 17:46
In the what? Excuse me.
AG: 17:48
Marble Hill in the Bronx.
IG: 17:50
Oh, I know where that is- a beautiful museum. So returning to Harpur College, how- did-did- Was there any- do you remember any faculty at Harpur that made an impression on you?
AG: 18:12
Yeah, I remember, I- as a political science major. I was- I took many of the political science courses I but I the one that stands out most was an English teacher by the name of Sheldon Grebstein, who I eventually met later on he became the president of SUNY Purchase for a while since retired, but I was there, and I lived close by to that campus. I had a membership to their swimming pool, and I had met him before I was a senior, and I took his poetry clothes- course. There was also a political science professor by the name of Blair Ewing, who left there, whom I remembered because I was accused of having stolen his final exam.
IG: 19:12
And did you, did you?
AG: 19:17
I did not.
AG: 19:18
It was a, it was quite a, quite a traumatic- I was a very naive young man, and I had a- one of the best final exam schedules I ever had. It was a dream schedule. I was done on Wednesday, and I had a date in New York to see one of the other students at Harpur's, to go to Peter Paul and Mary concert. And I was home for a day, and I get a call from the Dean, and they say, "You have been implicated in a cheating scandal. You have been accused of having stolen Professor Ewing's final exam." "What-what are you? No, they did not tell me that." They just said that I had been implicated in a cheating scandal, and they wanted me to come back. So, I said, I am not coming back. I did not do anything. We will deal with it when I get back after semester break, so the phone goes back and forth and back and forth, and they got my attention when they told me I could have an attorney present.
IG: 19:18
You did not. [laughs]
IG: 20:31
That you could what?
AG: 20:34
That I could have an attorney present.
IG: 20:38
Oh-oh, wow, wow, that is serious.
AG: 20:41
That was serious. So, I said to the dean, "Give me the benefit of the doubt and assume that I have no idea what you are talking about," which I did not, "and tell me what I have been accused of, or I will not come back. Either give me some details," I said. They told me that I was holding up the entire classes grades. Remember very well it was, it was Blair Ewing's course in totalitarians, comparative totalitarian systems. And I said, you tell me "Why you think I did something, and then I will come back." So they said that I had been accused of having stolen an exam. I had broken into his office and stolen exam. And then I sort of started remembering I had spoken to a friend of mine who actually was the general manager of the radio station, and I had spoken to him previously, and he had, like most students do, give me the details of this professor's previous exams, and he never changed his exams, so the questions were familiar. And I called him up and I said, I this is what is going on. He was still on campus because he was, he was involved in some activities that that he needed to be there for. And I said, "Look, I do not want a character reference. I want you to write a letter to the dean and tell her detail exactly what you told me without any without any value judgment." So this also happened to me, my first plane flight ever. I get back up to campus, I go into the dean's office. Ewing is sitting there. First words he said to me. And I- you can remember, you can imagine how-how prominent this is in my memory, because I remember it exactly. 50,52, 53, years later, he looked at me said, "Mr. Grant, I do not think you cheated. You should have done better."
IG: 22:59
What an excellent response.
AG: 23:01
I said, "What did I get?" He said, "You got to be on the exam." So, I sit down, and there is a young woman who is sitting there, and I recognized her as a student in the class, and then I remembered that I had met her in the in the snack bar just before the exam, and I saw her studying for the exam, and I said to her, "Well, you, you should study these things, and this is going to be the-the format of the of the exam." So I was talking to her, she reported me for having stolen test.
IG: 23:34
How terrible.
Third speaker 23:35
Oh my god.
IG: 23:36
How terrible. How terrible.
AG: 23:38
She thought she had missed out on something. So, I said to them, first of all, you had the letter from-from Joe Breast who was the, who was the general manager of the radio station. His main name may be familiar with Columbia, if you were going through the records of those days, who he and I graduated again, look to the data. I said, "Is it considered absolute academic dishonesty to research previous exams?" They said, "Absolutely not." I said, "Is it my fault?" And I looked at him "that you never change your exam questions." And so they got a chuckle out of that. And then this student looked at me, and she said, "But you knew the exact format of the exam," and I said to her, "As would you had you not cut the class where he gave that to us in class?"
IG: 24:28
I am sorry. As- what did you tell her?
AG: 24:31
She-she had cut the class where he gave us the format.
IG: 24:35
I see. I see. I see. I see. I see. Oh, how terrible.
AG: 24:41
I said "Was there ever any evidence of your office having broken into it that somebody had taken your exam?" "No-no-no." I looked at them and said, "So, what am I doing here?" And they looked at me and they said, "Well, there was a good faith accusation, and we had to follow up." So, they paid all of my expenses and sent me on my way, and the dean looked at me, and she said, "Next time, do not be so forthcoming with information for somebody else."
IG: 25:13
What was the good faith student reprimanded?
AG: 25:18
Again, I never saw her again. She just she vanished from campus. I think she was embarrassed. I do not think they reprimanded her, because she felt that she had enough information to-to make that good faith accusation. But she-she was the kind of student who cut a lot of the classes and all the and he had given us a great deal of information about the exam, so that was kind of one of the highlights of my college experience. It was not a pleasant one, but it came out okay, but I did not realize in my naivete how close I was to being expelled.
IG: 25:56
But what I mean, it is just, it is awful. It is an awful experience that-that you know, reminds me of, of the time of Stalin, where, you know, neighbors would denounce each other. You know, but-
AG: 26:16
Certainly, the case Nazi Germany for my parents.
IG: 26:18
Yeah-yeah. Yes-yes. I mean, it is very, it is very similar, and but it must have been a really formative experience as well. Do you, do you- how do you think that that- I mean, it was a shock, probably to the system, and how did- what-what impact did it have on you?
AG: 26:38
It was, it was, really, was not a shock. Because I-I believe I did not do anything so there was nothing, there was nothing. There could be no consequences, because I did not do anything which is stupid. I become much more circumspect in terms of information I give at the people and what you know, what I say, I felt I looked at them and I said, we could have done this on the phone.
IG: 27:06
Yeah.
AG: 27:08
If there was no evidence of any breach, we could have done it on the phone and-and have saved ourselves all of this time, expense and-and stress, [crosstalk] much more cautious person. I am- I certainly have disabused myself of the notion that-that being innocent protects you so that those- that was, that was, in fact, a formative experience.
Third speaker 27:39
When did that happen? Were you a sophomore, freshman? Would-
AG: 27:43
I think it was a sophomore.
AG: 27:45
No.
IG: 27:45
No, it is okay. It is all right.
IG: 27:45
Do you remember the Dean's name?
AG: 27:52
I remember the professor's name. He certainly can.
IG: 27:55
Yeah.
AG: 27:55
I am sure that is in the annals someplace.
IG: 27:58
Well, so you were a sophomore, you returned for your junior year? What did your friends say about this incident? Do you remember?
AG: 28:08
They just shook their heads. I said, you know this thing, it was, it was just, it was just, you know, kind of bureaucratic stupidity. If they told me what they needed to know on the phone I would have, it would have jogged my memory, and I was about this. I do not remember her name anymore. I said I had a conver- [his phone rings] Hold one second. Okay.
IG: 28:34
Okay.
AG: 28:35
That was my-my cell phone. My cell phone goes through my computer, so.
IG: 28:44
I see, I see, okay, so, um, how do you think-
AG: 28:51
I tried to close because it is if I, if I disconnect by accident, I will call you back.
IG: 28:58
All right, that is fine, sure. That is fine, but you still have a little bit of time.
AG: 29:04
Yeah, we are good. Okay, good. I close it and you are still there.
IG: 29:08
Okay, very good. So how do you think your classmates remember you, if they were to tell me, those-those who remember, and those, for example, those you worked with on the radio? How would they describe you?
AG: 29:28
Not sure I think they would describe me as that is hard to put-put into words that they were required to describe me as, you know, nice guy, not a, not a not a great student, not somebody who was, who was very involved and in any kind of political activity or any kind of activism, somebody who was, you know, we were kind of just there and good friend, but I have not really kept in touch with anybody from-from Binghamton at all.
IG: 30:13
You have not?
AG: 30:15
I have not.
IG: 30:15
You have not.
AG: 30:18
I tend not to do that. I tend to move on from one-one experience to the next very small circle of friends from, you know, different-different stages of my life. What is, what is amusing at-at this point is I have recently, become through Facebook, got connected with a group of friends from high school. I have, I have a distant cousin who I have been friendly with, and I was on his Facebook page, and there was a friend of his who looked familiar. His name was familiar. And I wrote him. I said, "Are you the same David who went to Clinton High School?" And he said, "Yes," and we had put together. There are five, five couples who all went to high school together, except my cousin. My cousin did not go to high school with me, but he met many of my high school friends at City College, where he went. So we now have a group of five couples who we meet every three or four months, and we go out to dinner, to a theater, to a Broadway production. And that predates. That is certainly from, from that era.
IG: 31:46
That is, that is very nice. I wonder if I know of other couples who from Binghamton who see each other annually. They have reunions in different parts of the Northeast. So just tell me a little bit about campus life. You know, the majority of students were like you from New York City or Long Island. And then there were some students from upstate New York. Did you notice differences between these you know, city-city folk and townies, they were called, I think.
AG: 32:33
I remember one, one of my one of my friends, was he was convinced that Jews had horns. That is how he grew up and-and his exposure to a lot of the New York students and a lot of the Jewish students was-was a kind of an eye opener for him. So yeah, we found a lot of, a lot of the upstate students a little bit provincial when I- before I got there, and my-my housing preferences, I put down that I did not want to.- I would prefer to room with somebody outside the area that came from. And I did that, and I had a roommate. We did not get to be good friends. And then through the radio station, I met some other people, and eventually roamed with them. And they were from -from the New York area, also from Westchester. And then eventually, my senior year, over junior, senior year, I got a single.
IG: 33:38
So do you- did your impression of students from upstate- I mean, you mentioned that there was a cultural difference between New Yorkers and, you know, upstate New Yorkers. Did you, did your impression of upstate New Yorkers change over the time that you were at Harpur?
AG: 34:05
I got friendly with people. I, yeah, there was one I- we exchanged visits during vacation. So a number of people come home to New York with me and show them New York. I went to their homes and-
IG: 34:19
Where? In Binghamton or?
AG: 34:22
No, upstate, and that now these were not people who these were all people within the dorms, I said, people who were local. I see. And we, you know, we realized we had more in common than we had differences, as is typical when you put different cultural groups together.
IG: 34:45
Yes-yes, I agree. So tell me a little bit about more about your free time on campus. Did you spend it all at the radio station? Or did you hang out with your friends in the dorm? Or, how did you spend-
AG: 35:04
Partially, even the radio station, mostly hanging out with friends in the dorm, doing, you know, going to movies. I- nothing really stands out.
IG: 35:16
Yeah.
AG: 35:17
As-as you know, spectacular. We- it was, it was very much a lot of my-my friends were pre-med and pre law, as I was, and we did a lot of it was, there was a lot of- and we mostly were, were studious, and that was a reputation of the institution in those days, and I still, I think it is still the reputation of the institution that it is, it is certainly not a party school. It was very much a place where people paid attention to their studies, spent time in the library, and yet spent some time, you know, dating and going on dates and going out to dinner and campus events when there were performances, but that was pretty much it.
IG: 36:10
So, how did you get around? Did somebody have a car, or did you take a bus?
AG: 36:18
[inaudible] The- you know, the under the underclass years there were, there was transportation into town. Some people have had cars. There was a, there was a shopping mall within walking distance, right- next to campus. So wanted to go shopping. A good while they would walk. Some people had cars. We would go. There was a I am sure it is still there. I think it is still there. We did not go out with some of us went out to bars. We were not heavy drinkers. We were more when we went out. It was more to a place called Pat Mitchell's, which was an ice cream place. We would go out and we would, we would have ice cream, and there were weekend nights, sometimes we would go out drinking and in the bars. In those days, drinking age in New York was 18, so it was much easier to-to go out and socialize that way.
IG: 37:32
I wanted to ask, were there women who worked on the radio?
AG: 37:38
Yes-yes.
IG: 37:40
Yes. Um, were- you know, do you think that there were different expectations for men than there were for women, or did the women who worked on the radio serious about what they were doing and maybe thinking of a career in radio?
AG: 38:03
I do not really think, except for one person who became a journalist, I really do not think that anybody expected to make a career out of this, certainly not the people that I was close to. And no, I do not believe that the expectations for the women were any different for the men. Also the women who wanted to be on air. Broadcasters certainly had the opportunity to do that, and it may have been a question that I was not astute enough for any kind of discrimination as far as that was concerned. But I certainly the women who were interested in doing whatever they wanted to do on that particular extracurricular activity had ample opportunity to do it, and did and did so.
IG: 38:58
it is interesting. So you know what looking back, what lessons do you think you learned from this time, including your unfortunate brush with this false accusation? What lessons did you learn from this time in your life? I mean, there are probably several, you know, because you spoke about, you know, the impact that the false accusation had on you. But what would you say? What did, what did this experience give you?
AG: 39:38
The college experience?
IG: 39:39
Yes.
IG: 39:40
Or?
IG: 39:41
Yeah, in a broader sense, not just a degree.
AG: 39:44
It certainly was-was for the first time, I was away from home, and I was determined I had the same, I had the same offer that many of my friends did if I went. To City College, my parents would buy me a car. I said, keep your car. You know, the Holocaust families were very overprotective, and there was a friend of mine later said, you know somebody I had met. Much later, he said he went, he went swimming and got wet, off to your ankles. They sent out the lifeguards, my parents, my parents drove me up and we were 50 miles outside of Binghamton. She said, "You know, you can still go to City College."
IG: 40:42
They were more comfortable with that alternative.
AG: 40:45
Yeah. The irony was that I had a friend who did exactly that and was killed in an automobile accident while he was, while he was in it was going to City College. So you never know. You just never know.
IG: 40:58
You really never know.
AG: 40:59
It gives you, yeah, I think, I think that whole experience was, I did not come out. You know, everybody comes out of those experiences different. But I, you know, it was an experience. I-I-I, when I was in graduate school, I look back and I said, it is you really need to apply yourself a little bit more to your studies than you did when you were in school. It was a question of trying to find out, find my find-find out who I was as an individual. I got part of the way there, but [crosstalk]
IG: 41:34
What did you, yeah, find out about yourself as an individual from that short period for from those three years?
AG: 41:45
that I was, that I was very much a solitary kind of individual. I know that when my father was a road salesman, and he would leave on Monday, he still had institutional textiles, and he had a fairly broad territory, which included the Adirondacks and his- many times during school vacations. When I was in high school, our vacation where we would go along with him, we go up to-to the resort areas, and sometimes he took me along by myself. And I remember thinking to myself, What a horrible, lonely existence this is. And later on in life, I find, I found, I learned the difference between loneliness and solitude. And although, you know, I married, I have a family, but there are, there are many times, right- My wife is still working, and I cherish the time that-that I have to myself. You know, it is kind of a transition when you retire, and I was worried about filling the time that I am reading. One of the things that-that happened in Binghamton was that that I was not very much of a reader. I had difficulty in talking to people about current events other than what was going on classes. I remember I once went gone with a friend to his home, and they had-had a very animated political discussion, and I had really had nothing to say. I was very quiet, and I went to a counselor when I was in law school, and he looked at me, and I feel I often have nothing to offer intellectually. And he said, "Well, do you read?" I said, "Well, you know, do subscribe to magazines?" And at that time, I started reading for pleasure and for information. And I am, sometimes I am reading two, three books at the same time, thanks to my Kindle switching back and forth, and I very much value the time that I have to myself. You know, I did not realize that when I was at school as an undergraduate, but certainly developed that I was I always you know, found myself many times. I found myself doing things by myself, and realized later on that, well, you know, you-you, you know how to be your own best company. And that is, that is a very, very valuable lesson to learn.
IG: 44:38
It is a valuable a lesson to learn. I am just wondering you spoke. [crosstalk] Yeah.
AG: 44:46
I kind of came late to things throughout my whole life. My daughter was born. I was 49 when I had, when I had, she was an only child. I think that makes you better parent, certainly a mature-mature parents, because you are done building your career and-and have a wonderful relationship with her now. So it is, it is better late than never [inaudible]
IG: 45:15
And just-just remind us, well for the record, your career was in development, or um-
AG: 45:24
I started out as a New York City school teacher.
IG: 45:27
Yes.
AG: 45:28
And as I am fond of saying, it was the second to the last place in the world, I wanted to be, as I told you earlier.
IG: 45:35
Yes.
AG: 45:36
Vietnam was last, and I had a- was in the school, and one of my colleagues in the school got a job at the Central Headquarters of the New York City school system. And he was in the federal- he got a job in the federal aid office. And at that time, I was taking a course at NYU and Intergovernmental Relations. And I said to him, you know, I am taking a course in that sounds really interesting. And if anything opens up in that office, give me a call. I would be interested in pursuing it. And he did, and I went down there. It was a everybody said, "Do not do it. It is a dead-end job." That office was a, I do not, we do not have enough time to explain the city school system to you at that time, but it was a liaison. It was, it was a, really, a glorified clerk of being a liaison between the city school district and the, and the State Education Department for the compensatory education program. So, we reviewed the-the entitlement program applications that went up, they were not competitive then, and if there were anything, if there was anything in that application that the state wanted modified, we acted as liaison. That- I did that for about a year and a half, which brought us to 1975 and there was a- our suit, our superintendent. She was an old-line superintendent, and we were bringing in $400 million in competitive compensatory education at that time in the 1970s.
IG: 47:25
That is huge. Yeah.
AG: 47:28
And they- there was a there was a recognition that that as a central entity, as a school district, we were not making a great enough effort to go after some of the smaller competitive programs, some of the small competitive grant programs. And they wanted a wanted to form a unit which was sort of like an in-house consultant, grants consultant unit. There were 32 districts and a number of central divisions, and we were there to help them mount competitive applications get more money, as a matter of fact, that is what my dissertation turned out to be. And in terms of competitive- how the competitive grant system works, but in 1975 there was a devastating fiscal crisis in New York City. There was a hiring freeze. Nobody could hire anybody, and so this superintendent formed this little unit, and anybody who could make a paragraph out of two sentences got drafted. We were very small. We started out and we were, we were unsuccessful for three years, and only because she was unwilling to admit that she had made an error, that she let us continue. And then once we-we had some breakthrough, very significant grants that-that-that that unit took off, and we had a wonderful reputation, we-
IG: 49:06
State from the state of New York grants or?
AG: 49:06
Federal government, state in New York. And then later on, I had, I became the director of that unit, and we started reaching out. We had a new superintendent who new chancellor, who opened up. It was like opening up the windows and waiting the air in. And we started going after private foundation money. And I initiated and spearheaded that drive. I remember I was I got a meeting at it with a foundation executive, and she looked at me and she said, "We would never fund you. I was just so astonished that there was an actual human being who called me up." But before we got done, we were bringing in money from foundations. And I- as I was finishing my doctorate, I was interested in moving on into higher-higher I guess that that was perhaps a holdover from my experience at Binghamton, because all I ever wanted to do in my career was go back and be on a college campus, which I started it I started at Hofstra University, and I have been in and out of education, higher education, elementary and secondary, initially higher education. I had a few jobs in healthcare, long term care, and major medical centers. My foray into healthcare was-was everybody has at least one train wreck in their career. That was mine, and then I wound up back in, back at higher ed.
IG: 49:09
Okay, that is, that is very interesting. So, I am just, you know, I am latching on to something that you said in the past, that you, you know, you are a child of Holocaust survivors. Did you connect with any other students at Harpur College who had the same background?
AG: 49:09
I did not.
IG: 49:09
You did not. You did not find anyone who was like that.
AG: 49:09
Most of my friends were very much American. I grew up in a community where everybody was of that background.
IG: 50:15
Yeah.
AG: 50:15
I was 10 years old. My parents moved to the Bronx and to Riverdale, and I had, a I had one friend that I gravitated to who happened to live in my building, and his parents also- There was a number of families in that building with the same background, but at Binghamton, I did not connect with anybody, nor did I know of anybody who had that background,
IG: 52:09
Because they were not first generation like you were. You are first generation American.
AG: 52:16
I am.
IG: 52:17
Yeah.
AG: 52:17
I am. And most of the people that I knew there were not.
IG: 52:21
Yeah, that is, that is very interesting.
AG: 52:24
American first-first in my family, to go to college.
IG: 52:28
Yeah.
AG: 52:28
Yeah, immediate family.
IG: 52:31
That is remarkable. What you know- what were the most important lessons you-you have learned in life that you would like to share with future Binghamton students who are listening to this recording years from now, what advice do you have to give to them.
AG: 53:05
I think part of it is to is to be serious about your studies, but have fun while you are doing it. Again, I kind of relived part of my-my undergraduate experience, and also had experiences that I did not have through my daughter in her and her undergraduate time. Spent a lot of time visiting with her and going to, going to, certainly the first apparent Parents Weekend was-was a highlight, which my parents never did. They dropped me off and dropped me off, and anytime I came home, I made my own arrangements, whereas my daughter we were, we drove up, picked her. She had a car all four years, but there was never enough room in her car for her to come home by herself. So we were back and forth many times. And I cherish that, because I loved it. Matter of fact, when she went to school, I saw the piles building I left, I left home to go to Binghamton with a suitcase. As I saw her collecting the material that she was going to cut the mattress covers the all of the stuff and the bins and things, I said to my wife, I am buying a plane ticket. She said, ridiculous. I said, “I see what you are putting together. I am not fitting into this car. Oh, do not be ridiculous. That is, that is stupid. It is a waste of money.” I said “I bought a plane ticket,” and sure enough, there was. There was no room for me in this car. So I flew up to Portland Maine and rented a car because they drove up, we met and then. My daughter kept the car that she was driving up there and we drove back. But it was, it is just such a totally different experience today. So, somebody who graduated in 1967 I do not even know what I what advice I would have given to my daughter.
IG: 55:14
I see, but I mean, you did give advice. Study very hard. Have fun. Yeah, I think, I think those lessons hold true from generation to generation.
AG: 55:27
She was always-always a kind of a student who was intrinsically motivated. This is a kid who she graduated, summa cum laude, phi, beta, kappa, Colby College. That is quite an achievement. And as-as self-possessed a person at her age as I never was, and I look at her in awe, because the what she knows about herself and her, her, her goals and her-her ability to pursue those goals. It was not anything that I never picked that up until much, much, much later.
IG: 56:11
Well, you had a different upbringing than your daughter. That is very different.
AG: 56:16
I never wanted to be the parent my parents were. Yeah, as I think most people would admit to- I do not think you know, there is an old saying, first to become yourself, and then you become your parents.
IG: 56:32
Yes-yes, oh, I have never heard that expression that is very good. Yeah.
AG: 56:38
When you think about it, it is alarmingly accurate.
IG: 56:44
So in which way have you become like your parents?
AG: 56:49
I am more overprotective than I should be, and my wife counter balances that, because she is not. She is much more, you know, permissive in terms of what my daughter so there was good balance. You know, we try to keep her safe, but, but she has to learn her-her own. She has to find her own way in life, which-which my parents kind of never got. So she fell in love with Maine, and she decided that all she had, the credentials she could have, she could have pretty much done anything she wanted. And one of the, one of the, one of the things that she did she was on, she was a psychology major. She was on her way to applying for PhD in clinical psych. And I knew, I know the first one of the things that she did at Colby. Colby has what they call Jan plan. You have you take a full course in-in a January semester. You can either make your own class, you can take a standard course. So her first course in January, she became an EMT, and she eventually was one of the one among the leaders of the EMT squad on campus. She was an EMT on the COVID campus for her entire years, and she was going to go and the be a clinical psychologist and get a PhD. I always knew from watching her that she-she was the kind of person who needed to be on front lines, kind of a first responder, not really an academic, and she had her mentor arranged for an internship for her summers. And she had an internship. She went the first summer, and then the second summer, she came home. The middle of it, she said, I do not want to do this seriously my life, which is kind of a wonderful outcome for an internship, because she could have been down the road to a PhD, and then found out she did not really want to. I want to have that kind of an experience.
IG: 59:02
She sounds like a girl who knows her mind.
AG: 59:05
And she is now at the University of New England. She is pursuing a nursing degree. As I said, we were tearing her hair out because we thought she should go to medical school. She says, I do not want anything to do with being a doctor. That is not what I want. I want to be a nurse practitioner. So, she is in now, in a program, a 16-month program for students who already have a bachelor's in something else, and she will come out with a BSN and an RN, and then pursue a career in as a nurse practitioner.
IG: 59:37
You know that Binghamton is starting up a PhD program in nursing.
AG: 59:45
I can see her eventually going through. I will mention it to her.
IG: 59:53
Yeah. Mention it. I think that this program is beginning in 2020.
Third speaker 59:57
Yeah. And I think Binghamton has a. Very strong nursing program.
AG: 1:00:02
Yeah, she did not want to follow in my footsteps,
IG: 1:00:11
As most children do not. So, yeah.
AG: 1:00:14
One of the more amusing things that we when we went to the Colby Information Center session, there was a very engaging student who presented, and he said, "My- I am a legacy student. My parents met at Colby." And he said, "First visit, I hated it. I wanted nothing to do with it, and they prevailed on me to come back." And he said, "My parents realized that they were giving me their experience, and when they went, what they did was they let me explore the campus on my own, and then I enrolled, and I loved it." So, it is again, it is question she-she eventually may seek that out, but, but she does not want to come back to New York. She loves Maine, and that was her criteria for-for a college campus, it had to be rural, it had to be a self-contained campus. It had to be a small liberal arts school need to be [inaudible] all of which she got.
AG: 1:00:16
But it is close enough to New York.
AG: 1:01:26
Yeah, and none of which I knew about myself at that time.
IG: 1:01:30
Do you have any concluding remarks for us?
AG: 1:01:35
In terms of-of what you are doing with-with the (19)60s? I do not know I would be interested in seeing how typical my experience is. And I guess some of these interviews, or all these interviews, are going to be available online some point. So, I would hope that you would send out the links for that so that we could, we could watch each other and well, I have not kept in touch with any of my classmates from those days, a few of them on LinkedIn and Facebook, perhaps, but I would like to see what their responses are.
IG: 1:02:14
Right. Because in conducting these interviews, there are commonalities, you know, but-but I think that every-every experience is very different. So I think that you will be very gratified to hear the interviews of your classmates.
AG: 1:02:33
At Binghamton--you cannot even it is so different that you cannot even call it the same school. Those of us who were there when I was this was an incipient, brand-new school. It was, and I was among, certainly, probably among the first students, first years where it was, where moved from Triple Cities College to the current campus at that time, it was, again, as I said, very small. So if you look at it today, there is, there is no comparison. It is, it is, it is like comparing something like Colby to Penn State, just a totally different [crosstalk]. Harpur College was a small liberal arts institution. Was nothing else. There was no graduate school. There was there was, it was, you know, it was Harpur College. That only happened after I was after I graduated. So that to make comparisons with those with the students of my day and the students who are there today, it is just too different a place.
IG: 1:03:42
Well, that is why I think it is- yes, and you experienced the (19)60s, which students today are not. So, it was really, you were a pioneer in-in terms of, you know, being a one, one of the-the first graduating years from this institution. But you were also living in very different times, you know. And that is why we are conducting these interviews, and that is why we are creating this center, virtual center.
AG: 1:04:18
If I had to do it over again, I would never, I would not go back to Binghamton.
AG: 1:04:22
You would not?
AG: 1:04:24
I would have not given my background. I found it; it was-
IG: 1:04:28
Where would you go?
AG: 1:04:30
-it was, and what I know about myself today.
IG: 1:04:35
Yes,
AG: 1:04:35
That I did not. I probably would have gone to school in Boston in a more urban environment Boston. And I did not have grades to get into, into the Ivy Leagues, but certainly a Boston University, a school that had much more of-of a social component that Harpur College that I would, I think that probably would have brought me out a little bit more than-than the experiences that I had where there was the sameness of the students in terms of their-their academic aspirations, there was that certainly was partying, but the social component was weak, and I probably could have benefited from a school that had a had a more structured, more extensive social component, not that I wanted to be in a fraternity or anything which was, which was not my thing. I do not know my daughter also we-we went to on our visits. We were we drove up to Colgate. She was one of the schools. She first thing you see when you drive to Colgate is Fraternity Row. And she looked at us, get me out of here.
IG: 1:05:45
Yeah.
AG: 1:05:46
The reason she chose Colby is because I had eliminated Greek life many years ago.
IG: 1:05:58
Right. Well, that is all very interesting, and it is- we will be in touch with you and let you know about the progress of the website of the center and when your interviews will be digitized and put up online.
AG: 1:06:19
Where are you at the beginning, the middle, the end. Terms of-
IG: 1:06:23
We are I think we think-
Third speaker 1:06:25
You are the ninth, the ninth informant that we interviewed so far.
IG: 1:06:32
-to do another eight. It is just, Aynur, and me, we are going to do another eight in the next couple of weeks. So, I think that, you know, as soon as-as we are going along, we are going to put up these interviews, each are an hour an hour half long.
AG: 1:06:52
Let me know as I sent you an email. I think coming from a development office, as-as given all my years of experience in development, I think that was a deterrent. I almost deleted your message.
IG: 1:07:04
Well, what could I do? I mean, I was given this assignment, given my reporting background, and should I write, perhaps, that I am a reporter for, I was a reporter for Fortune Magazine, but I am not anymore.
AG: 1:07:18
But I think, I think coming from a development office gives the wrong impression.
IG: 1:07:23
I will let the Dean know. I will let the Dean know. I am also, you know, I will. I will, you know, I think that you have a very valid point.
IG: 1:07:32
Okay, that-that is a very that is very good advice. I do not know how much I can do about it, but I agree with you.
AG: 1:07:32
I have been a VET Development Professional one way or another my entire career, and maybe I picked up on it because, okay, it is coming from a development office. They want to this is a pre solicitation gimmick, and I really do not want any part of it. And then I researched the- I looked up the center online. I saw that it was a legitimate thing, connected with you on LinkedIn. I think yours, your email signature. It should not be coming from a development officer or just my two cents.
AG: 1:07:38
Well, you have another title, and that is=
AG: 1:07:53
Not here, not here, it is not here. I can just leave it out, maybe the Development Office part,
AG: 1:08:25
but yeah, because it is not relevant, [crosstalk] development officer,
IG: 1:08:32
Maybe it could come from you. All right, well, we will figure it out, but you have certainly given us food for thought, and thank you so much for a great interview.
IG: 1:08:43
All right, thank you. I appreciate you reaching out.
(End of Interview)
Date of Interview
2018-02-14
Interviewer
Irene Gashurov
Year of Graduation
1967
Interviewee
Dr. Andrew Grant
Biographical Text
Dr. Andrew Grant is a retired Assistant VP for Institutional Advancement at Hebrew Union College in NYC. He worked as a disc jockey at WHRW-FM.
Interview Format
Audio
Subject LCSH
Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Alumni in higher education administration; Harpur College – Alumni in higher education administration; Harpur College – Alumni at Hebrew Union College; Harpur College – Alumni living in Suffolk County, Long Island
Rights Statement
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Keywords
Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Alumni in higher education administration; Harpur College – Alumni in higher education administration; Harpur College – Alumni at Hebrew Union College; Harpur College – Alumni living in Suffolk County, Long Island
Files
Citation
“Interview with Dr. Andrew Grant,” Digital Collections, accessed July 25, 2025, https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/971.
