All About Mentoring Spring 2011 - SUNY Empire State College

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before the end of the study, but it was
always a unique and engaging educational
experience for the student.
George warned us that the college would
gradually be absorbed into the traditional
methods of higher education and would
look more and more like other colleges. He
warned us to beware of the three terrible
C’s: calendar, curriculum and classes. He
was prescient. We now have terms, area of
study guidelines and group studies. Much
of his vision is gone. Yet, in the interaction
between mentors and students, his spirit is
with us still.
Ken Cohen
The college was four years old when I
arrived at the Genesee Valley Center, and
many things were in place while others were
still developing. The notion of the college as
an experiment was very much alive. Before
I took the job, an acquaintance advised me
that the college was too offbeat to survive,
and another said that we would run out of
adult students before long. I decided to take
a chance that lasted several decades.
The tales that could be told of those early
days are many. One early spring day, we
were visited by the dean who informed us
that we had exceeded our student quota
for the year, we couldn’t accept anymore,
and we should find some other things to do
(alas, a one-time occurrence). On another
day, sitting with a couple of other faculty
examining some weaving from a box that a
student submitted for prior learning credits,
the following dialogue ensued:
Faculty member No. 1, a biology mentor:
“What do think it’s worth … maybe
4 credits”
Faculty member No. 2, a human
development mentor: “I think it might
be worth 8.”
Faculty member No. 3, a business mentor,
“How about 6”
All, “OK.”
Good days.
George Drury was a founding faculty
member, one of those who carried the
torch of humanistic education. He strongly
influenced the viability of our college
and the work that we perform. My most
immediate memory of George is that he was
a very gracious, sweet and gentle man, who
had a warm, easy smile and a twinkle in
his eyes. He took his role as resident faculty
philosopher very seriously, and always could
be counted on for a narrative at each faculty
meeting about the meaning and purpose
of our common endeavor. These oral
comments were always followed up with
a written commentary, The Prince Street
Dialogues (something that I think would
be called a blog in today’s argot), where
he explored his views in greater depth.
Frankly, many of these contemplations were
too erudite for me to fully comprehend
although I would be willing to try again if
any copies of these papers come to light.
His students had no such trouble grasping
his presence and substance. Feedback from
them consistently confirmed his calm,
understanding manner, his desire to help
them learn and grow, and the success of his
efforts in moving them to higher intellectual
levels. His learning contracts were never
discrete, 4-credit blocks, but instead were
holistic documents that would encourage
expansive and integrative learning. Several
years after I arrived, some faculty got the
notion that we should offer small groups
as a learning modality. I don’t think that
George ever ran a group – one-on-one, faceto-face,
customized learning was his way.
For me, too, with all the changes in the
college, the ability to work with students in
this individualized mode was certainly the
high point of my 30-plus-year career.
The only time I saw George’s anger and
sadness was when he needed to leave the
college because of mandatory retirement-age
mandates. He was not at all diminished in
his capacities and he very much wanted to
keep carrying on the work that he loved and
fit him so well. His heart and mind were
very much in the right place to provide a
strong foundation for the college and to
sustain our mission during his many years of
service. I miss him.
Lloyd Lill
As one of the founding mentors of the
Genesee Valley Learning Center, George
Drury was a caring colleague who critiqued
and examined the role and direction of
centers and the college. George’s dialogues
and discussions were always in support
of mentors and mentoring, creating an
atmosphere for students to learn and
acknowledging the importance of meeting
student needs.
One of my memories of working with
George is of co-mentoring a Xerox student.
The student was studying the History of
Economic Thought with me, and with
George, An Introduction to Philosophy.
I recalled the student’s excitement after
meeting with George and how they
discussed Socrates’ death in Plato’s
Phaedo. George loved his students
and they loved him.
Traveling with George was always a
challenge filled with many surprises. On one
occasion, I was in a car with George, Peter
McDonough and Larry Lipsett on our way
to an All College Meeting. Our conversation
turned to the creation of the universe
and a supreme creator. George spent a
considerable amount of time describing the
Thomistic philosophy, the existence of God,
and the first cause of the universe. Larry
quietly announced he was an agnostic, and
the next minutes were spent in utter silence,
which was remarkable, for there were few
times I remember George being silenced.
Wayne Willis
I first came to Rochester in the summer of
1977 to interview for a one-year position
at Empire State College, an internship in
mentoring for newly minted Ph.D.s. I was
excited by the possibility of working at a
new college that had embraced so many of
the ideas and practices associated with the
“free school” movement of the ’60s and
’70s. But I wondered whether I might feel
intellectually isolated at an institution where
there were no academic departments and
where the faculty was divided into small
regional clusters. When Bob Seidel, the only
Genesee Valley Center mentor in Historical
Studies, took me to lunch, I asked him how
he dealt with this. Bob replied, “I talk with
George Drury.”
Over the next 10 years until his retirement,
and after that on occasions when he
and his wife, Finvola, would return to
Rochester from their home in Maine, I
learned that George could indeed talk
with me on just about any subject that
suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011