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A Tribute of My Own
PM Kellermann

Three AM.  I sit staring at my student’s paper, trying to think of some final words of encouragement.  How can I tell this student that her work lacks focus when my eyes can barely focus on her words?  I have already written her three-quarters of a page of comments; what is left to say?

My friends tell me that I spend too much time writing comments on my students’ papers, too much time responding to their e-mails and their petty concerns, too much time playing the role of the kindly Uncle Kelley to a group of befuddled eighteen-year-olds.  How do I explain what motivates me?  They haven’t seen what I have seen.  They didn’t know my sister Lynne; they weren’t at her funeral.

Hundreds of Lynne’s students, past and present, came out that cold December morning to pay respect to their teacher when they might have been home studying for finals.  An editorial, simply titled “Tribute to a Courageous Life,” appeared the next day in The Daily Targum, the Rutgers student newspaper.  It described the scene: 

Lines formed on either side of the casket, which fit snugly in the bottom of the grave; the gathered slowly passed by and, shovelful by shovelful, covered it with dirt.  The day was cold enough to merit a winter jacket—maybe a scarf, too—but no one seemed to notice.

            Lynne Kellermann was buried yesterday.

The writer should be glad Lynne never saw the editorial.  She would have been all over his case for writing in the passive voice.  She would have been damned proud of him, too, for describing the scene so vividly.

I think about my many conversations with Liza, Lynne’s protégé.  Lynne changed her life.  The effervescence in Liza’s voice when she spoke about my older sister, her teacher, exuded a love that cannot be manufactured, it must be earned.  After Lynne died, Liza continued corresponding with my mother and father.  Her letters—intimate, yet punctuated properly, as if she were writing to her grandparents—assured my parents that Lynne’s legacy lived on in her students.  Fittingly, Liza received the first Lynne M. Kellermann Award, a prize Rutgers awards annually to the top student in the university’s Honors Program.

And for every Liza, there were five Kelvins.

One night in the early eighties, I milled about a dance in the Great Hall at Livingston College.  An enormous room of cinder block, cement, and tile—the ceiling nearer the heavens than the floor—the Great Hall served as a lobby and meeting place.  I looked up to the second story overhang where the DJ was spinning “Superfreak,” scanned down the long, gradual staircase, looking for familiar faces and/or cute coeds.  At the bottom of the stairs, a colossal African American man with a shaved head and leather blazer stood staring right at me.  Six-six, 240, I recognized him: he was one of the stars of the Rutgers basketball team.  After catching my eye, he approached: “You’re Lynne’s brother, aren’t you?”  I nodded.  “Man, you look just like her.”

Before I could say, “She doesn’t have a beard,” he wrapped his arms around me, squeezed tight, and lifted me into the air.

“Man, I love your sister!”

Gasping for air, I sputtered, “Thanks, Kelvin.”

“Do you know, I never read a book until I was in her class?  She made me read.  Goddamn, she made me read!  Man, I love reading.  I read every day now.  Your sister is the greatest.”  Hunched over slightly to look me in the eyes, he went on for another twenty minutes—arms flailing, voice rising, exuberance increasing with every sentence uttered.  When his friends walked by, he grabbed them by the collar and hollered: “Check it out, this is Lynne Kellermann’s brother.  You remember that prof I told you about?”

While I remember feeling intense pride that night, in addition to bruised ribs, I didn’t realize how long that scene would stay with me.  Lynne’s impact on her students lasted long after they left her classroom.  If I could inspire my students a fraction as much as Lynne inspired hers, every second of my time would be worth it.

I lost track of both Liza and Kelvin.  Kelvin played professional ball in Europe for a while; I like to think he’s become a voracious reader.  Liza, I’m sure, is sitting on a faculty somewhere, recalling on occasion that one special teacher who launched her on the road to scholarship.

I look down again at my student’s paper; I begin to write: “While your argument could use more focus, your writing continues to improve with each paper.  You might try . . .”  I continue writing comments for another fifteen minutes or so, offering suggestions, techniques, and tricks that might help her writing.  And then I add, “If you’d like more specificity, come see me.”  Almost as an afterthought, I attach her grade in a scrawl so small she’ll need a magnifying glass to read it: B-.

Weary beyond comprehension, I pet my dog Obie and tell her that I’m going to sleep.  She doesn’t get up.  Suddenly, I’m struck by an urge: maybe I should check my e-mail to see if any of the kids are having a problem with their next project.  

Lynne would have loved e-mail. 

 

A Tribute of My Own

 

 

Last updated 07 June 2014
pmk8@psu,edu