While at Kent I parked in the lot where the four students were killed. There is silent march around the campus, an all-night vigil, and the ringing of the Victory Bell the next morning in memory of those killed and injured. Classes are dismissed for a May 4th commemoration each year. This event and its aftermath are ingrained into the fabric of the university. Four students were shot on by the Ohio National Guard in one of the most significant national tragedies of our generation. Just ask me about Speech Pathology and Audiology, or Library Science!Permit me a digression on the Kent State shootings that I’m sure you remember. My college had 6,000 students and 250 full-time faculty organized in eleven schools or departments including arts, communication, and health science disciplines. But instead of an extra-marital affair, I accepted a job as Dean of the College of Fine and Professional Arts at Kent State University in 1996. By that time I was fairly well published, a full professor, and had served as Chair, Associate Dean, and Acting Dean of the School of Art. I taught Renaissance and Baroque art history courses and continued working on my dissertation I received my PhD in 1978 and taught at UNT until 1996. We lived in Dallas and I commuted about 30 miles north so Joan could work in a downtown department store. In the fall of 1975 I began as an Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of North Texas in Denton. In 1974 we spent five months in The Netherlands, Germany, and London researching 17th century Dutch still life. I received an MA in 1972 and began working on a PhD. She traveled to India and Hong Kong doing product development –but enough about her!!)In August, 1970 we moved from Rochester back to Cleveland and I began graduate school. (My wife Joan was also from Rochester and had a career as a retail buyer for Halle’s, Marshall Field’s, Sanger-Harris, and other Federated department stores. I spent half of 1969-70 in Basic Training and Advanced Training in Fort Dix, New Jersey. My hometown of Rochester, New York, had an Army Reserve Band (The Eastman School is there). Everyone was trying to get into the Army Reserves or National Guard. Draft deferments for graduate school had ended and the lottery was scheduled for the summer of 1969. There was one small problem – the Vietnam War and the draft. I was accepted at Case Western Reserve University. I decided to get a graduate degree in art history and teach (Thank you, Michael Fink!). I shared an apartment with Tom Pokorni and two others (It was hard to get Tom to do the dishes!). I could not wait to finish my senior year. I suspect like many of you, my university seemed small and parochial. Joan Sullivan thinks it captures her husband’s spirit perfectly.I returned to John Carroll University in Cleveland after our year in Rome. Scott Sullivan prepared this biography in September 2018 for his 50th reunion with Loyola of Rome classmates.
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