My most prized memories of Michigan have to do with Dr. Bennett Weaver, the spitting image of an Old Testament prophet. He was tall, thin and angular. His wizened face bore a nose bent to the right, as if it were going in a different direction than the man himself.
Dr. Weaver was a professor in the English Department, a specialist in the poetry of Robert Browning, whose great love was teaching classes on the Old and New Testaments as English Literature.
I registered for the first of these classes guided by the fact that Weaver’s name was the most frequent response to my question asked of fellow students, namely,
“Who is the best professor from whom you’ve taken a class?”
The first day I felt as if I were in the presence of Amos himself. Dr. Weaver had a manner about him that ran the gamut from severe to gentle. His voice mirrored the mood of the Biblical verses being considered. He could thunder judgment with Micah or coo comfort with Isaiah. And his nose seemed always an active participant.
Dr. Weaver’s classes were academically rigorous but the impact came from his obvious care for students. During that first semester I discovered Dr. Weaver also had an eagle eye. At the end of one day’s class, Dr. Weaver, having consulted a seating chart of the large assembly, announced,”Mr. DeMoss please meet me in my office this afternoon!” I was thunderstruck and puzzled, but appeared as requested and was invited to sit. I found myself confronted by a desiccated apple on the desk accompanied by a neatly lettered sign that declared, “This old apple can’t be polished.”
Weaver said, “Today as we studied Psalm 130:6,’my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning,’ I saw a look go across you face. Would you care to tell me about it?”
Out of that conversation and others that followed,
healing and friendship were born. And a brilliant scholar with a crooked nose and an eagle eye revealed the best of Michigan–its heart.

During my time in the School of Education at U-M, I had a number of very good teachers. One stands out from the rest. U-M, as anyone who attends there knows, is a big university. It’s easy to feel lost in a large lecture, or really, even in a large group setting. But when I sat in Carl Berger’s class, he made a point of getting to know his students. My memory of him has little to do with the content of what he taught, but rather the kindness and energy and warmth of his personality, which made his class fun. One time, he invited our class to his house for lunch. I remember sitting in his family room, chatting with the other students, and eating homemade mushroom soup that his wife had made. I looked at his bookcase with awe…..at the raw manuscripts (his) he had in his shelves, marveling at the fact that he had written books (which of course many U-M profs have done!!).
It was a small moment in time, but a memorable one because it brought a bit of ‘home’ to a student away from home. I never forgot his fun and energetic style of teaching, nor his willingness to connect on a less formal level with his students. I was glad when he became Dean of the school…he seemed like the kind of person who would be good at leading and encouraging others in that sort of capacity.

I find it ironic to the extreme that my letter to the editor (Re: turnaround 29 Jan 2009) immediately followed one by Professor Henryk Skolimowski.

His engineering humanities class changed the way I saw things in a major way. The reason for my writing that letter traces directly back to the influence of his class, and it is extremely ironic that my letter was printed immediately following his.

In organic chem in 1970-71 I was privileged to have (I remember her as) Samantha Ege, who was a rare woman in Chemistry and an excellent teacher. She blew the entire class of 300 plus away the second week when she called on people by name!!!!
In any event, I told my daughter the story at some point in her growing up. She went to Michigan for undergrad, and when we were flying together for spring break her frosh year, she said, “What was that prof’s name Mom?” When I said Ege, she held up the textbook she was studying from, and said “LIKE THIS?” and of course Dr. Ege had written it. Very cool.
PS She is finishing her DDS and heading to NYU for the combined MD/OMF program.

still have the poster! I was only 18

I remember Waterman and Barbour gyms very well. Although I had a great high school basketball career, I applied to U-M for its academic reputation knowing that they did not have an intercollegiate women’s basketball team. When I arrived in 1973, I played pick-up games with the fellas in Waterman. In fact every Friday night one of the student employees and I would play one-on-one basketball, since he had the keys to the gym.
Before the end of 1973, Title IX was being enforced and U-M started an intercollegiate women’s basketball program. Our team’s practices were relegated to the Barbour Gym where the court was less than regulation size and the overhanging track blocked your shot.
All in all these two gyms allowed me to continue to play the sport I still love to this day.

Thanks for the pictures of Waterman Gym (March 2009). It brought back “fond” memories of playing basketball there in the 1970’s and getting a foot “issue” from the showers which took several years to clear up. I’m sure that there was 80+ years of micro-organism buildup by that time.

I’m so disappointed to see the slide show of the Waterman gym (March 2009) that underwent demolition. That building was a turn-of-the century architectural gem and as so often is the case in Michigan not worth preserving. My dad once worked in a “Victorian” courthouse in Saginaw and it too was torn down and the building that replaced it has no architectural value—just another box with windows. Preservation and restoration does not seem to be a priority at Michigan. I once lived in Stockwell Hall and it too, seems to have no historical significance worth preserving. I think it’s fine to build new facilities but at the same time the old should be preserved—it’s an important part of Michigan’s history for those who follow to see and study.

Thanks for the memories of Barbour and Waterman Gyms (March 2009). As a Phys Ed minor in the late ’40s, I spent many hours in both places. How well I remember the agonies of trying to register for classes there!!