Another bit of autobiography: How Willamette U. influenced my life

I wrote this for a New York Times essay contest,  but they didn't use it.

Willamette University, not highly selective in 1957, had an immense impact on my life. Most importantly, through a classmate I met my wife---who attended a different college--- of more than 50 years (and counting). A faculty member's suggestion that I consider graduate school and a college teaching career diverted me from an original intent to join the Foreign Service. National panic over the launching of Sputnik during my freshman year prompted Willamette to add the opportunity to study Russian, which I used extensively during my 36 years teaching political science at Adrian College. The honors program required a major senior research project which was excellent preparation for writing my doctoral dissertation.

The curriculum prepared me well for acceptance by graduate programs at five major universities including Johns Hopkins (which I attended), MIT, and Harvard, and to win NDEA and Woodrow Wilson fellowships. But I also had time to play clarinet in the band, to take four years of pipe organ lessons, and to make some long-lasting friends.

But the biggest impact Willamette U. had on me was my very existence. My parents had met there. The college was therefore my alma mater in more ways than one!