An Admirer of My Father

[ndrosen]

A Penn State alumnus who was much impressed by my father’s philosophy courses, although he himself was majoring in chemical engineering, now proposes to endow a Stanley Rosen Professorship at Penn State. He, or a professor at Penn State, got in touch with my brother, who then included my sister and me in the exchange of emails. I have reported to this man who wants to endow the Professorship, and may write more about my father when I can find the time, and set my thoughts in order.

Back when my father was a professor at Penn State, our relationship was not ideal; he was (in limited circles) a famous intellectual, and he was in some ways a good family man; but no man is a hero to his valet, or to the teenager who is the main target of his adult temper tantrums. Nonetheless, we did in time reconcile and forgive each other, and I am now pleased to see honor done to my father’s memory.

Comments

[warriorsavant]

Very cool. Would love to have an endowed chair (or something) named for me someday, but the world is in no danger of that.

[ndrosen]

Who knows? It could happen.

[thewayne]

My wife got her PhD from Penn, but in astronomy/astrophysics 25 years ago and probably didn't take any of his lectures. But was adjacent, at least.

[ndrosen]

Twenty-five years ago, my father had retired from Penn State and gone to Boston University, but if your wife took a number of years to get her Ph.D., her time at Penn State could have overlapped with my father’s (and with mine; I got my Ph.D. in Materials in 1996), although this doesn’t mean she took any classes with him.