Letters: Fall 2015

Memories of Miss Hillwood. Plus, we want to hear which STC/TSC/TCNJ professor had the biggest impact on your life.

Words by TCNJ's editorial staff

PROPS FOR PROFS

The best professors don’t just teach—they change lives, encouraging students to see things, such as a work of art, an equation, one’s place in the world, in new and exciting ways. Which TCNJ professor has had the biggest impact on your life? Send us your story (no more than 200 words, please) along with any photos or artifacts you have to magazine@tcnj.edu or to The Editor, TCNJ Magazine, Office of Communications, Marketing, and Brand Management, PO Box 7718, Ewing, NJ 08628-0718.

MEMORIES OF MISS HILLWOOD

I attended the college from September 1938 to May 1942 and remember Miss Hillwood very well (“Looking Back,” Summer 2015). Few students had cars back then, so that bus was our transportation to Trenton-area churches on Sunday mornings.

Charlotte Anderson Baker ’42

Who can forget Harvey Brazier, the genial man behind the wheel of Miss Hillwood for so many of our off-campus excursions? For me, one of the more memorable journeys took place in spring 1953, my sophomore year, when Professor Lois Shoemaker arranged a biology field trip to the Jersey shore for our Elementary II section. The Inn (a former campus dining hall) provided a thermal canister of hot dogs for us, along with condiments and buns. Professor Shoemaker asked my classmate, Walt Elmer, and me to load those items on the bus. All went well until lunchtime on the beach, when Walt and I discovered we each thought the other had loaded the hot dogs. There were more groans than laughs as the class made the best of hot dog buns filled with relish and mustard.

I think Harvey had packed his own lunch that day. Smart man.

Robert De Castro ’55

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon during the last half of junior and senior year, health and physical education majors boarded Miss Hillwood to be dropped off at local elementary schools. We taught one lower- and one upper-level elementary class, and were then picked up after school hours to return to campus. We had a close connection, sharing experiences of being teachers and having fun, and we were grateful for Miss Hillwood’s transportation.

Nancy F. Mueller ’53

CORRECTION

Our sincere apologies to the family of Ronald H. Albert ’62, whose name was misspelled in last issue’s “In Memoriam.”