All About Mentoring Spring 2011 - SUNY Empire State College
All About Mentoring Spring 2011 - SUNY Empire State College
All About Mentoring Spring 2011 - SUNY Empire State College
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83<br />
Honoring George Drury (1917-2010):<br />
Reflections From Colleagues<br />
George Drury was born in St. Louis, Mo.<br />
in 1917 and grew up in Chicago, where he<br />
earned his bachelor’s degree at St. Mary of<br />
the Lake <strong>College</strong>, his master’s degree from<br />
Loyola University, and his doctorate in<br />
philosophy from the University of Chicago.<br />
For several years in the 1940s, he directed<br />
the Sheil School of Social Studies. He later<br />
taught for ten years at Loyola University.<br />
In 1959, he moved to Detroit to become<br />
one of the charter faculty of Monteith<br />
<strong>College</strong>, an experimental small college<br />
for working-class undergraduate students<br />
within the larger structure of Wayne <strong>State</strong><br />
University. (David Riesman, Joseph Gusfield<br />
and Zelda Gamson wrote at length about<br />
Monteith’s history in Academic Values<br />
and Mass Education: The Early Years of<br />
Oakland and Moneteith, published in 1970<br />
by Doubleday.) In 1972, George came to<br />
Rochester to become a founding mentor on<br />
the faculty of the Genesee Valley Center at<br />
<strong>Empire</strong> <strong>State</strong> <strong>College</strong> where he remained<br />
until his retirement in 1987. He was active<br />
in center and collegewide governance and<br />
as co-convenor of the Cultural Studies<br />
area of study group. Throughout his<br />
years at <strong>Empire</strong> <strong>State</strong> <strong>College</strong>, he wrote<br />
and distributed a series of philosophical<br />
dialogues on education as we might practice<br />
it progressively at the college. These were<br />
collected as The Prince Street Dialogues in<br />
1987. He died in Ellsworth, Maine on May<br />
13, 2010 at the age of 92.<br />
What follows are reflections from<br />
colleagues. Thanks to Jim Anderson, Ken<br />
Cohen and Lloyd Lill for their words.<br />
Thanks, especially, to Wayne Willis for his<br />
thoughts, his research and for all of his care<br />
and work in creating this opportunity to<br />
honor George.<br />
Jim Anderson<br />
Photo of George Drury with one of his students, taken through the window of<br />
the Genesee Valley Learning Center. This photograph appeared on the cover of<br />
The Prince Street Dialogues, written by Drury and published in honor of the<br />
college’s 10th anniversary in Rochester, N.Y.<br />
For me, George Drury exemplified the role<br />
of mentor. I often suggested to my students<br />
that they do a learning contract with him.<br />
“What does he teach” they would ask.<br />
“Just make an appointment with him,”<br />
I would say. The student would meet with<br />
George and return with a topic for study,<br />
often one they never had thought of interest<br />
before. They would not have a learning<br />
contract with purpose, learning activities<br />
and criteria for evaluation spelled out –<br />
only a topic and some suggested reading to<br />
get started. The learning activities would<br />
emerge in discussions between George and<br />
the student. The exact direction of the<br />
contract would evolve from the exchanges<br />
between them. This caused headaches for<br />
administrators who wanted contracts filed<br />
suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring <strong>2011</strong>