Chancellor Caldwell had the biggest impact on me of anybody.
I worshipped the ground the man walked on. He was an amazing person,
probably one of the most amazing people I've ever met.
But there were some other professors there. Joe Mastro, who passed away a few years ago,
I stayed in contact with for years, who taught Soviet bloc foreign policy
at 3:00 on a Friday afternoon and the class would be packed.
No one would miss a class, and no one goes to class on a Friday afternoon.
He was amazing. He helped get me thinking about politics and stuff.
But Caldwell was the main [one].
We were constantly at each other's throats publicly
in meetings and stuff, completely disagreeing on an awful lot of stuff,
and it was very high energy disagreement,
and then that night I'd go have dinner with him at his house.
He was just a great man. We respected each other greatly but we would fight like cats and dogs the entire time.
I'll never forget-. I can't remember what the-.
The chancellor, once a month, has a thing where the heads of the faculty senate and the student body leaders
and different people come together. I can't remember what it's called,
and I'm sure they still have it,
but I'll never forget Cathy Sterling told me,
she said, "Now that first meeting, what he's going to do when you walk in,"-and it's a big room and there's about forty people there-
"He's going to save the chair directly beside him for you to sit in
in because he wants to-." He was so intimidating.
He was such a powerful figure that he wants you right there beside him,
and [Cathy said], "Don't do it.
Go sit at the other end of the table."
So that first meeting I walked in and I got there just before it started
and sure enough I walked in and there's a seat right beside him,
and the chancellor says, "Gus, come up here and sit beside me," and I went,
"No thank you, Chancellor," and I went down and pulled up at the end of the table.
He just smiled. I think he had an idea. He probably figured I'd already talked to Cathy who'd told me not to sit up there.
And we just went at it constantly.
I'm not sure whether Cathy liked him as much as I did.
I'm not so sure she did, and he was a bit of a-.
He was having a real tough time with all the stuff that was going on.
He'd never seen students in the street like that,
marching and doing stuff on civil rights and anti-war,
and we got into huge arguments over advances of the African American community and education,
where he thought things were just so much better than they were,
and they clearly weren't and I'm sitting there saying this is nowhere near where we need to be.
He just couldn't understand why I would get so angry about that, that we were moving in the right direction,
but a little too slow for me.