I arrived at the College in September 1952. At that time, a large percentage of Columbia "Men" (remember those dark days before women were admitted?) lived at home in the city or nearby suburbs and commuted to campus. It didn't take very long for me to get from the northeast Bronx to Morningside everyday--only about an hour and a quarter.

Times have changed in other ways as well. Everyone smoked in those days before the Surgeon General's Report's revelations about smoking and lung cancer. Along with some of our instructors, many of us smoked in class and at "smokers," which--if I recall correctly--were all male beer-parties run by the various fraternities to survey possible new recruits. I never joined but I tried hard to be adult by drinking free beer and, of course, smoking cigarettes. Ah yes, the good old days when New York State considered that if you were old enough (18) to register for the draft, you were also old enough to drink and buy beer at the West End or booze from any bar or liquor store if you wanted!

Ironically, this was not the beginning of four years of debauchery, but the start of a four-year intellectual journey which was to begin with my immersion into the "Core Curriculum." The College indeed lived up to its reputation as a venue for discourse on ideas--whether the "Great Ideas" or not so great ones.