I was more interested in baseball, little league, playing pickup in my neighborhood, or going to see the Indians' games with my parents and sisters. In fact, my uncle owned the dry cleaners that cleaned the Indians' uniforms. I spent many a summer day in the clubhouse with future Hall of Famers such as Bob Feller, Early Wynn, Al Rosen, Satchel Paige, and others collecting their dirty uniforms for cleaning. In school, I was bored by the narrow, authoritarian teaching of the day, the rote learning, and teachers that spent more time trying to cram facts and figures down our throats than trying to inspire and connect the subject matter to the problems and realities of life. And, I might add, hitting us with a paddle or a ruler if we disobeyed or challenged the norms and rules of that time. I learned my ABCs as one had to do to get by and graduated from high school in the spring of 1962. I didn’t enter any science contests, collect insects, spend time after school marveling at the wonders of chemistry and physics, or win any academic awards for excellence. However, I did have one distinction—the record for the number of detentions after school in the principal’s office that still stands to this day! Looking back, my antics in the classroom were driven primarily by boredom and as a protest against the monotonous teaching of the day. Teaching that inspired me indirectly throughout my career to make my classes as exciting, relevant, and inspiring for my students as they could be—a quest that, ironically, has been one of my major passions and successes during my five-decade career as a science professor.
I decided to go to Ohio University (OU), a small, bucolic school in the Appalachian foothills of southeastern Ohio and the oldest public university in the United States outside of the original 13 colonies. I had no clue as to what I was going to major in or pursue as a career if I was able to graduate from college, given my very poor high school record. Fall of 1962 was a memorable one in history and for myself. The U.S. confronted the Soviets in the October Cuban Missile Crisis shortly after I arrived at OU. It was a very scary time and we spent lots of time watching the evening news with Walter Cronkite and practicing survival skills in radiation fallout shelters hoping that the world would avoid a nuclear catastrophe, which we did thanks to President Kennedy. Little did we know that he would be killed by an assassin’s bullet a year later changing the course of history. Nevertheless, fall classes went on as usual. As a freshman, I enrolled in The University College which was required of all first-year students. It had a standard liberal arts curriculum and allowed new students to adjust to college life and find a subject area they might want to major in starting in their second year.
My life was changed forever when I enrolled in an introductory biology class taught by Professor Norman Cohn, a young plant cytologist who had just received his PhD from Professor C.P. Swanson at Johns Hopkins, the preeminent plant cytogeneticist of that era. Norm was unlike any teacher I had ever had—dynamic, witty, brilliant, and a “teacher’s-teacher.” He opened my eyes to the excitement of science and discovery, the importance of biology to our lives, and most importantly, how to think critically. Norm’s class focused mostly on cellular and molecular processes, and what we now call molecular biology. Looking back, this was only nine years after the discovery of the DNA double helix and four years before the genetic code was cracked. Although little was understood about molecular processes in living cells, Norm focused on the current state of knowledge and raised questions about the future—what could be known? I recognized immediately that this presented an enormous opportunity and that if one decided to explore the molecular aspects of how genes work the future was wide open. My eyes were opened for the first time about a subject that I could spend a lifetime thinking about if I was dedicated and smart enough to conquer the rigors of science—something that I did not do very well in in my journey leading to college. This was also a time when the U.S. was making a big push in STEM in order to catch up with the Soviets in the “space race.” Pursuing science as a career was emphasized and there was a lot of financial support for students such as myself. My hopes were raised when all of my energies studying long hours in the cavern-like Chubb Library during my first college semester came to fruition and I achieved a 3.5 GPA and an A in Norm’s biology class. In fact, my high school friends were “shocked” by my academic performance, my parents said that they always knew I “could do it,” and I obtained enough confidence in my abilities that I challenged myself to reach for higher heights. Once I decided on a science trajectory, Norm and his wife Peggy—also a scientist and Dean of the Honors College—were my cheerleaders, mentors, and friends for over 40 years until they both passed about a decade ago.
