JOSEPH CANALE

Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY
Transcribed by Kyra Walker
For the Marist College Archives and Special Collections
















Joseph Canale






Transcript – Joseph Canale
Interviewee: Joseph Canale
Interviewer: Gus Nolan
Interview Date: 20 July 2017
Location: Marist Archives and Special Collections
Topic: Marist College History
Subject Headings: Canale, Joseph

Marist Brothers—United States—History
Marist College—History
Marist College (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.)
Marist College—Social Aspects

Summary:
Joseph Canale reminisces on his time at Marist as both a student a professor. He also shares his
views on the changes Marist College has undergone throughout the years and his hopes for the
college’s future.













Gus Nolan (00:00):
Today's Thursday, the 20th day of July, and we have an opportunity to interview Dr. Joseph Canale. A
long time professor at Marist more than 30 years, 33 I think.
Joseph Canale (00:19):
30.
Gus Nolan (00:19):
And just retired within the last year.
JC (00:24):
Two years.
GN (00:25):
Two years. Okay. Well, good morning Joe.
JC (00:29):
Good morning Gus.
Gus Nolan (00:31):
This is an oral interview as you see and is an attempt to gather for the Marist archives an account of
different people who have been here for some period of time about the history and development of
Marist. And my question kind of is, how did this happen? It seems to be such a big stretch and you
would know it particularly well having been a student.
JC (00:58):
Yes.
GN (00:58):
Is that right?
JC (00:59):
Yes.
GN (00:59):
Yeah.
JC (00:59):
Yes.

GN (01:00):


Well, starting at the beginning of your life and so on, could you give us just a thumbnail review about
where you were born and brought up? You don't need the dates. We don't know how old you are.
Where do you go to school? Grade school? High school? What can you say about that?
JC (01:22):
Well, I was born locally in Wappingers Falls. I attended St. Mary's parochial school in Wappingers Falls.
That was my parish for eight years and then I went to Our Lady of Lourdes. And there, I went there in
1961. And at that time there were many Marist brothers teaching there on the high school level. I went
there for four years and I decided to go to school locally because my parents had limited funds. We
could save some money that way. Plus, Marist College gave me some money to attend here, grant and
aid. So the tuition was very reasonable, and I came here in 1965. I was seventeen.
GN (02:33):
Okay, to high school...what about your interests? Did you play sports? Were you in clubs? Did you have
particular interests?
JC (02:42):
I didn't do very much in high school. One of the reasons I didn't play sports was because at Lourdes you
did not have what they call now activity buses. After practice you would have to hitchhike home rather
than get a ride from a bus. And by the time I would get home, it would be fairly late. And so I chose not
to play sports. I was in a few clubs. I was an officer in one of my homerooms in senior year. But I was
mainly there as a student. It was a magnet school, so there were kids from all over the county.
GN (03:29):
What kind of clubs? Drama? Choir?
JC (03:34):
I was on the yearbook.
GN (03:35):
Yeah. Okay.
JC (03:36):
Yeah, yeah. That was the one I remember. Like I said, I wasn't that involved, with extracurricular
activities. I played sports, you know, on a little league, junior league level baseball. But I chose not to...I
probably could have made the team, but I chose not.
GN (04:10):
Very good. The business of going on to college now. Marist was not very well known at that time. So was
it a kind of a risky thing? Was it gonna give you what you wanted?
JC (04:29):
Well, you know, having had the Marist brothers for four years in high school, I was fairly comfortable
with the idea of going to Marist College. I had really good teachers at Lourdes and I felt comfortable
with their style of teaching. I mean, Lourde's was strictly college bound academic curriculum.


GN (05:04):
Did it have a big workshop? Plumbing shop?
JC (05:07):
I don't even think we had typing, we might've had it. But, you know, science, math, the humanities.
GN (05:22):
Was it all boys or was it mixed at that time?
JC (05:24):
Well, there were girls, but we were separated. It's the old Poughkeepsie high school. One side...when
we got off the bus, the girls went to the right, we went to the left and we didn't see them again until the
end of the day.
GN (05:39):
Coming on to Marist, what was your first impression? The campus was kind of primitive by today's
standards. Give us a quick overview of that. What do you recall?
JC (05:52):
Well, it wasn't that impressive, you're right. When I came to Marist in September of '65, nothing was
developed between Donnelley and Champagnat. It was kind of gravel there and people would park
there. It was like a parking area.
GN (06:18):
Well there were garages there, wasn't there?
JC (06:20):
I don't remember. Maybe so. The only building I remember between Donnelley and Champagnat was
the gym. And we had to take a gym class freshman year, and the gym was in disrepair. It was, you know
the floor was parquet and it was coming up. And I don't even think we showered in the gym because-
GN (06:47):
No, we didn't have a locker room upstairs.
JC (06:49):
Yeah. So, that was kind of disappointing. But, you know, Champagnat had just been built. And I had
some friends who lived there, so I got to know the building pretty well and went to their rooms and I
was very impressed with that. It was a nice new building. But almost all my classes early on, first year
were in Donnelley.
GN (07:13):
Well, even by that time Sheahan and Leo were already up.
JC (07:16):


They were up. Yes. But a lot of the freshman I knew who were living on campus lived in Champagnat. It
was pretty much an all boys school there. I think it was all boys, and I felt comfortable with the student
population because many of them came from similar backgrounds. Catholic, Catholic schools. A lot of
kids came from Lourdes in my grade, my senior year. So, I felt pretty comfortable coming here.
GN (07:52):
Tell me about the cafeteria. Was there one?
JC (07:58):
I don't remember the cafeteria. I always...they used to call us brown baggers. Commuters. I would take a
lunch when I needed to. They had a few machines around but I don't remember the cafeteria.
GN (08:18):
Do you remember a building called Adrian Hall?
JC (08:20):
Yeah. That was right across from....yeah, we would go there sometimes. It was like almost-
GN (08:26):
A lunch room.
JC (08:27):
Yes. Wasn't the business office there too? Tony Campili.
GN (08:32):
That's right.
JC (08:33):
I was related to his wife, so every once in a while I'd see Tony and say hello. So, yes Adrian, we would go
there and have a lunch, you know, to eat our lunch there.
GN (08:47):
Okay. Coming back to Marist and the academic aspects of it, you must have done pretty well because
the records show you went on to graduate school and earned a doctorate. So what were your classes
here? What was your primary study? Did you know what you wanted to do when you were going
through here?


JC (09:09):


Well, at first I thought I did. I wanted to be a biology major and then go to dental school. That's one of
the reasons I chose to stay at home to save some money because I knew I was going to go to graduate
school. I thought dental school. So my first year I was in classes with chemistry and biology majors.
GN (09:38):
Was Paul Ambrose there at that time?
JC (09:40):
Yes, I didn't have biology though first year. I had in organic chemistry with Richard LaPietra. They had an
honors course that I was in. And that was a seminal course for me. He was quite a force.
GN (10:03):
You don't have to tell me that. I lived with him.
JC (10:06):
The students kind of idolized him. I had also Jerry White that first semester. Milton Teichman. So I had
some really good teachers. I stayed in biology for a semester and a half, and then I decided I don't think I
want to be a dentist. So I didn't know what I wanted to do exactly. I talked with Dan Kirk about a psych
major, and he helped me get into the psych program. He waived a certain course and allowed me to
catch up. So I majored in psychology. And again, there were a number of people I had as teachers who
became my colleagues when I came back here. There was Bill Eidle, Ed O'Keeffe. I had really good
teachers. I had Griffin, you remember Griffin, the economics guy?
GN (11:20):
John Griffin?
JC (11:24):
Yeah. A guy named Kelly who was a math teacher.
GN (11:27):
Not Jack Kelly, who was the head of the business department.
JC (11:31):
Yeah. But we had a pretty strong liberal arts core then. We had to take philosophy, theology--a number
of courses in each. We had to take economics-
GN (11:47):
Let's go to philosophy just a bit. Did you have either Donohue or..?
JC (11:51):
Yes



Gus Nolan (11:52):
You did.
JC (11:52):
I had Donohue and...was it Desilets?
GN (11:57):
Brian Desilets would be in physics. Richard Rancourt?
JC (12:02):
Richard. I had him, and Donohue I had for metaphysics it was called. I had some really good teachers.
GN (12:17):
They would be happy to hear you saying that. Of course some of them have passed on. Some are still
around. Bill Eidle would be happy to know that you still see him in this glowing light as it were. Okay.
Well, moving on from here, where did you go to graduate school?
JC (12:33):
I did some graduate work at New Paltz. But before I finished my master's there, I got accepted into a
doctoral program down at the University of Tennessee in what was called educational psychology and
guidance. It was kind of like counseling psychology. So I went down there and got my doctorate.
GN (13:00):
Did you work? Did you teach or anything during graduate school?
JC (13:03):
Yes. I had an assistantship to work as a counselor at the counseling center at the University of
Tennessee. And I added some hours there that became my internship. One of the reasons I went there is
they gave me the assistantship-which included tuition- so it was very cheap. But at that time I was
married to Linda and I had a child, Joey, and we lived in married student housing.
GN (13:40):
In Tennessee?
JC (13:41):
Tennessee. Yeah, I finished my doctorate-
GN (13:44):
What was the name of the city?
JC (13:45):
Knoxville.



GN (13:46):
Oh Knoxville, Tennessee.
JC (13:47):
Yeah. It's the large university. University of Tennessee- Knoxville.
GN (13:52):
Moving on, when you finished graduate school and you got your PhD, what was the next step? Did you
apply to Marist or were you teaching someplace else in between?
JC (14:05):
Actually my doctorate was in EDD, in educational psych. My intention after I got my doctorate,
especially with the work I did at the counseling center...I had also done some work while I was doing my
master's at Saint Francis Hospital in their rehabilitation program and I worked with counselors and
psychologists. So my intention was to be a practicing psychologist. So, I got out of graduate school and I
had a friend who I met at St. Francis who offered me a job in a child guidance clinic in Lincoln, Nebraska.
So I went there and I worked as Staff Psychologist full time for five years. I did a little teaching at the
University of Nebraska, which was right there in Lincoln. And then, there were some family issues. My
father died and brother died within a couple of years of each other. So I felt the need to be closer to
home, to my mom. My wife was also...her parents were living in the area. So we came back and I got a
job with the Astor Home for Children. I worked with the outpatient program for about two and a half
years. And after that-
GN (15:39):
Put a time on this. The early seventies, late seventies?
JC (15:42):
I got my doctorate in '75. I left Lincoln, Nebraska in '80. And about '81, 80-81, started working here in-
GN (15:55):
The Astor Home?
JC (15:56):
Yeah. Although I was not assigned to the home, I was assigned...they had outpatients, you know, like
they were child guidance clinics too. So I worked at Rhinebeck clinic, then I ended up running the
outpatient services for awhile as the program director. But I heard that there was an opening in the
Psych Department at Marist. I had some students from Marist working with me at Astor. I remember
there was this one guy who...he was a student from Marist. And he told me that there was an opening
and he said, 'I'll put a good word in for you.' So I applied, and it was in the area. They were looking for
someone who had counseling experience...to teach those kinds of courses. And I had them...I was
licensed as a psychologist in New York state. They wanted a licensed psychologist. So I applied, and Bill
Eidle hired me. It was a small department.
GN (17:13):
Because Dan Kirk left at that time?


JC (17:14):
He had died.
GN (17:15):
Oh, I see.
JC (17:16):
I saw him the year before we went to lunch. And I told him, I said Dan... you know, actually a couple of
years before he died, he got me an adjunct job here. I taught I think one course. He said, 'would you like
to teach a course?' I said yeah. So then, I met with him I think the year before he died. We had lunch
together. But the year I came he had passed away. That was something I really regretted. I would have
loved to have worked with him.
GN (17:56):
Did you meet Midge along the way?
JC (17:57):
What's that?
GN (17:58):
Did you meet Midge Schratz along the way?
JC (18:00):
No, I met her in the interviews for-
GN (18:05):
On campus?.
JC (18:06):
Yeah. But I didn't know Midge until I got here as a professor. We got along very well, Midge and I.
GN (18:14):
All right. What were the first classes then that you've taught here? You're coming on full time now at
about...'85?
JC (18:23):
'84. It's September of 84. Okay. Again, they wanted me to teach these applied courses and to run the
internship program. So I taught a course called Fundamentals of Counseling, an undergraduate course. I
taught a graduate course in counseling, more hands on kind of thing. And I ran the internship which
meant that I had to go visit interns wherever they were located. I would meet with them monthly, make
sure things were going well. I did that for...I ran the internship for 17 years.
GN (19:12):
17 years?


JC (19:13):
Yeah. And taught courses too.
GN (19:15):
Well, was it not a requirement course for seniors?
JC (19:18):
Yes. Back then. And this is something Dan instituted, I was a student when he instituted it and it was
wonderful for me. I had my internship at St. Francis Hospital with Jerry Goodman, who was a
psychologist. It was a wonderful experience and one of the things that really encouraged me to go on.
GN (19:41):
For psychology.
JC (19:42):
Yeah. So when I came, seniors had to do a full time fieldwork someplace. So I was assigned to make sure
they got an appropriate place and follow them through the internship.
GN (20:02):
Yeah. Moving on from your own involvement and education and experience and finally, you're on board
here and your teaching...I had no idea you did internships for 17 years. That's rather remarkable. You
probably haven't booked it right on that, visiting various sites. Coming back to the campus now, we said
at the beginning it was kind of primitive when you first came here with only really three dormitories up.
There was nothing north of Route 9, I mean the railroad. And so Lowell Thomas, I guess what was there,
it wasn't there long.
JC (20:42):
No, in fact, I think they were building Lowell Thomas or finishing it at the time.
GN (20:48):
Well, we had two dedications one year apart. We have what they call the annual stone-raising
[inaudible] and the kids made mockery of this because for the longest time they kept plowing it and
leveling it. And of course they were filling in a pool.
JC (21:06):
That was before me coming here.
GN (21:08):
So the foundations were going up. So I mean, that's why it's not easy to put a date on that because I
lived through it. Right here on campus.
JC (21:16):
But Lowell Thomas was new.


GN (21:20):
Yeah. So much so that it's old now. It has been revived.
JC (21:24):
Oh yeah. And I was through most of the revisions.
GN (21:29):
Alright. The question is though, as you look at the campus now, in a rather small period of time-in our
lifetime-what was really a very primitive college have become a mainstay in the educational field. So the
question is, how do you explain this? What would you say were the forces that brought this about?
JC (21:52):
Well, I have to give Dennis Murray credit. I knew Dennis pretty early on. In fact, when I came to sign my
first contract, Andrew Malloy was AVP. And he said, 'Joe, I'd like you to go over and meet Dennis
Murray. Go over and knock on the door and tell him you're a new professor.' So, I was a little nervous,
but I went and Dennis saw me right away. I just introduced myself, we were there a few minutes. And all
through my time here, Dennis was very supportive of me, you know. He and I got along well and I think
what helped put this college on the map was the development of the physical plant and the
development of graduate programs in different majors too . Extending the breadth of curriculum, you
know., Like when I came, my office was right in the middle of the core of Donnelley. I had no windows-
GN (23:14):
Everybody else was in there as well. In Donnelley[Laughter]
JC (23:17):
You know, it was a little cubby hole...and then six years later, we move over to Dyson and my whole
west window, my whole west wall was a window looking out at the river. What a change! It was
beautiful. So I think that had a lot to do with it. I mean, bringing...I used to do the orientation for
students who were looking at Marist at the end...and the campus sold the college much of the time.
GN (23:56):
Yeah. Well this is true. What I mean, in a sense, no one came to Dennis' courses. It was not his teaching
that brought people here. I mean, he was a fundraiser and he developed this tremendous brand.
However, I mean the Marist tradition, the location of the college, I think...yes, there are a number of
forces, as I was saying that really had a lot to do with it. Dennis gave it a direction and an inspiration. We
can do this, you know.
JC (24:27):
Dennis, like you said, I think a lot of parents like the idea that Marist had the Marist Brothers tradition
and was based initially as a Catholic college. Our beautiful chapel was a centerpiece that parents would
see. And we also, I remember in these orientations, we emphasized the personal touch that teachers
gave their students. We were not that big numbers in the classroom. We were always available. And it
was true. It wasn't-



GN (25:08):
No, classes with 25 and 30. Not 350.
JC (25:12):
And we were available for advising, special projects, whatever. And that I think was a plus. A lot of
students like the idea of the personal touch in teaching.
GN (25:26):
Now, with this development of Marist though, there seems to have been a change also in the faculty, or
at least the spirit. I've talked to people like yourself, who have retired after 30 years or something, and
they say it's like being at three different colleges you know. One was a kind of survival, will we make it?
The other was kind of anti-Murray, you know, he won't give us money. He's always putting up walls and
buildings...so it was always that kind of [inaudible]. Now, I couldn't even get in here, let alone teach, in
terms of the credentials that you need and the prestige of the college. All those things. Where do you
see the college now?
JC (26:10):
Well, just to piggyback on what you said, I saw that transition. In terms of how the faculty felt about
Dennis. When I first got here, there was a lot of discontent. Is it okay to talk about it?
GN (26:30):
Yeah. It's a nice word to use [laughter].
JC (26:32):
There was a lot of discontent, and I was a junior faculty so I didn't say much. Plus I said, like I said, I got
along well with Dennis...but there was a tug of war. Some people wanted to keep, some faculty wanted
to keep the college a small liberal arts college. At the time I came, I think there was only two graduate
programs and it was still pretty much a liberal arts college. Small. And then there were those who--and
Dennis I think was in this camp--who felt the need to expand, to broaden our curriculum. And some of
our faculty meetings, as you know, got pretty heated. There was a lot of tension. And Dennis I think felt
it. He must have.
GN (27:28):
I agree with you. I led the role separating Communications from English. I remember the faculty
meeting, which was dubbed 'Let My People Go' [laughter] [inaudible]. The faculty had a vote on
separating commun--and the reason why, communications needed a different diploma. The charter had
to have, you know, a separate...we couldn't be under English because you weren't given enough English
courses.
JC (27:58):
I see. Yeah.
GN (27:59):
So we had communication business organization, communication public relations, public opinion, mass
media. These were all-they're not English courses.


JC (28:09):
No, I see what you're saying. And there was also some animo--well animosity may be too strong a word-
-but some resistance to the idea that giving graduate teaching three courses instead of four. We had a
couple of battles over that. I noticed as years went on, Dennis--and the older faculty retired--Dennis had
a much, easier time you might say, dealing with faculty were more-
GN (28:50):
He also is a little bit more gentle himself. He came as a young 34-year-old. 30 years later, he's not 34
now. He's 64.
JC (29:01):
He weathered the storm and then became more of a fatherly figure here rather than an upstart as
maybe some saw him.
GN (29:16):
Alright. Another [inaudible] here. Your own personal experiences. As a professor, what were some of
the biggest challenges you had in terms of the classroom or teaching your students or the college? What
would you say would be some of the more challenging problems?
JC (29:38):
You know, I really didn't have a lot of adversity here. I mean, I had some of the things most teachers
have, some students who try to manipulate-
GN (29:51):
A course change.
JC (29:52):
Yeah. Or, the excuses for not handing in, those kinds of things. But, I never had a major personality clash
with anybody. Everybody treated me, both in the department and outside with respect and kindness.
Administration, faculty, staff. Your know, I-
GN (30:29):
I don't have to stay on this forever. Because the next part of it...what is some of the more satisfying?
JC (30:37):
Yeah. And, besides the aggravation that some poor students give a teacher, I never experienced
anything that made me really unhappy about being here.
GN (30:58):
Very good. But now, do you have some students that went on that you're very proud of?
JC (31:05):
Oh, sure. I taught a lot of graduates. I taught graduates students for the first 28 years here. So every
year I had graduate courses and many of them--some went on for doctorates--but many of them are


working in the area. All over the place. Schools, clinics. That internship, both undergraduate and then
we had graduate internships which I did too, students were well known by these employers because of
the internship. And many of them were hired right after it. The probation department here has a lot of
Marist students, at least from my era.
GN (31:58):
Working for them.
JC (31:59):
Working...[Laughter] yeah working for them. Every once in awhile I'll run into a student who's working
and they'll remember me and it was just very gratifying. So I liked running the internship because being
a clinician I was able to go out, talk to other clinicians, see where things were at in the field. I did some
private practice too for awhile while I was at Marist for a number of years. But, then to see our students,
most of our students were really well received by these places. They loved our students.
GN (32:39):
A sidebar off this now: what were some of your own personal accomplishments. Have you worked on
chapters of a book, or reports or shared with a colleague together on a project?
JC (32:56):
Yeah, I had some publications while I was at Marist, articles that were published. I think I had maybe six
or seven in professional journals. In fact, the last one I had, we developed some kind of an assessment
device to measure students' irrational beliefs about college and academics. And it got a fair amount of
response from the, community. I did some research in the area of forgiveness in therapy, altruism. I got
a few publications. And I had a few publications before I came here. I didn't write any books. I had most
of my scholarship was in the area of articles.
GN (33:54):
Very good. Okay, your crystal ball, look into the future. Where do you see Marist 10 years from now?
Will it be here? Will it be bigger? Will it be different? Or 20 years?
JC (34:07):
Wow. Well, I think it's on the road to being different now with the addition of these medical specialties.
GN (34:22):
Physician's Assistant and Physical Therapist.
JC (34:26):
All of these things, I mean, that's a huge expansion in terms of what we have to offer. It's interesting,
and you were here when this happened, years ago we had a nursing program here and the faculty at
some point voted to discontinue it. And now we're back with the physician's assistant in its own
building. I just don't know how much more Marist can expand. I don't know that much about it, but how
much more property do they have? How much more academically can they expand? Maybe a doctoral
program here or there, but I would hope it doesn't expand too much more. I don't think it should
become a university.


GN (35:19):
Right. What about the aspect of technology? The idea that students don't come to campus, the online
courses? How do you feel about that?
JC (35:34):
I'm not a big fan of a lot of the technology that's been incorporated into academia. And it's not just
because of my age and I wasn't born in the computer age and grew up in it. Even powerpoint I'm not
crazy about. I think students...I used to do the talk-and-chalk method. And writing on the board gave
students a time to sink in what I was writing, what I had said. The powerpoint I thought was distractive
to students. And online courses, I don't think you can get, for most courses anyway, nearly the richness
you can get from being in the classroom. I know it's part of our society today, but I'm not a big fan of it.
And I think it retards the learning process.
GN (36:42):
Dennis has revealed to me that he really thinks undergraduate should all be on campus. There should be
very few online courses for undergraduates. Graduate school is a little different. They could be, it
depends on what the subject is.
JC (37:00):
The subjects I taught in graduate school would never work online. You know, we had like learning how
to counsel people. We did roleplays, we did laboratories and that kind of thing. No. But yeah, I guess I
would agree with that to some extent.
GN (37:21):
If you had a chance to talk to the board, what are some of the current needs of Marist? What should
Marist do now? Or in other words, we're doing very well, but this is missing. What's missing?
JC (37:38):
Oh, boy. I don't know if this is unique to Marist, I would like to see...well one thing is some way of
incorporating values, value clarification, into the curriculum. To not only give students information that
they can use, but to bolster a healthy value system. I know that gets tricky. Whose values are you going
to-but I think our Catholic tradition should mean something. Although we're not here to convert people
to Catholicism, I think the Judeo-Christian ethic is something that should guide us. In terms of our
philosophy, our mission, it should be a place where people come out-not only better students, but
better people. Concerned more for other people.
GN (38:47):
Back to that question though. Catholicism. Is Marist a Catholic college?
JC (38:53):
I don't think it is. It was when I came here. I remember starting each class with a prayer, at least my
freshman year. It was when I came here, a Catholic college. That's one of the reasons my father wanted
me to come here, and I didn't mind. Again, I went to Catholic schools.



GN (39:21):
There was Mass every day on a campus up until recently.
JC (39:25):
Yes. I attended, and that was nice to have that noon Mass. So I don't know. I didn't live on campus as
a...you know, I don't know how the students perceived it. When I was here, like I said, I had to take four
theology courses in addition to other things. I think it was four... plus philosophy. I think it was
designated as a Catholic college in the 60s right?
GN (40:01):
It used to be. And then with the new board of trustees, it was taken away from a religious authority and
it became a secular-run institution. So the board of trustees and not the Marist brothers then were the
principal, whereas, Fordham is a Jesuit school. Iona is the Christian brothers, but we are not a Marist
college per se. However, percentage wise, they are more Catholic students, as much as they claim it as a
religion, here than at Notre Dame.
JC (40:35):
[Laughter] Really? Well, I think parents, I'm pretty sure parents, when I was a teacher here, saw this as a
kind of a Catholic college. Their perception was 'this college has Catholic roots and it still has a Catholic
identity.'
GN (40:55):
There's a chapel here.
JC (40:56):
You know, and Mass every day like you said. They had a Mass in the evening on Sundays for students
who were home after a night out Saturday. I wonder if it...how things would have changed for Marist if
they didn't relinquish their Catholic-
GN (41:20):
That's true. I don't think you would be as popular as it is.
JC (41:25):
Maybe it was for federal funding or something.
GN (41:31):
That's part of it.
JC (41:31):
Yeah. But it might had a niche that it doesn't have now. There's this school in Pennsylvania, St Francis.
But I mean-



GN (41:49):
We're not of shy students applying. The niche part of that would be unique, we've have a lot of smart
Catholic kids maybe.
JC (42:00):
Yeah. It's not something I regretted them doing or anything. I hope, you know, Dennis was very good
about whenever he spoke publicly about the college to include the Marist brother tradition, and that
was important. And you know, there's not too many left here. John Scileppi and I came out of the Marist
brother tradition. Doc Doherty. When Doc retires, I don't know how many more faculty remember that?
So I hope in some ways we can keep it alive.
GN (42:48):
Right. Well, the very growth of the campus when we're all together in Donnelly. Now communications is
by itself, math is by is by itself, and computer science. Science is by itself. So there's that division. While
we've grown, we're hardly all in the same building anymore.
JC (43:08):
No, no. Then you always give up something when you lose intimacy, you know? So I would like to see
the board maintain a Catholic tradition.
GN (43:30):
The Marist tradition. And social work, I mean, being involved with people. Well that leads us to the next
question here. Simply, is Marist worth the investment? And when I say that I'm talking about $50,000 a
year, that's $200,000. But by the time they finish with the loans and so on it $300,000 to $400,000. It's
four years of dedicating one's life going to classes and doing homework. There's the idea of more than
likely leaving your home, as it were, and coming to a foreign campus and meeting new friends. There's
quite an investment here.
JC (44:19):
Yes.
GN (44:19):
Is it worth it?
JC (44:21):
I think it is. Again for the same reason, I think it is now for the same reason it was 20 years ago and
during my teaching here. I think even though it's expensive, it's still a pretty good deal compared to
some other schools. It's a beautiful campus and you still have small classes with dedicated teachers. So I
mean, the expense is not unique to Marist. But you're getting, I think what's important to get in a good
education--dedicated teachers and a nice place to live.
GN (45:07):
And even though at the end of it you may not get a job the first year out, what you do have, well, you
don't come here to make a living. You learn how to live, you know?


JC (45:19):
Yes. Plus, now that Marist has been in existence for a number of years, there are a lot of alumnus out
there, especially in the Northeast who know about Marist; who came to Marist and when there's an
applicant from Marist, they pay attention to that. Our alumnus-
GN (45:42):
44,000
JC (45:42):
Yeah. You know, and a lot of them are in this area. I mean, in my day it was really worth it. The tuition
was low and I got a wonderful education for very few bucks. I think it's a good school. I mean I always
did think it was a good school.
GN (46:05):
Were you ever tempted to leave? Did you ever have an offer? Why did you stay so long?
JC (46:14):
Well, I liked what I was doing. I liked what I was doing. I could have left for a clinical position
somewhere. There was a position I think, I never really investigated it too much. But I stayed because
like I said, the people were always very decent and honorable in my experience.
GN (46:42):
Except in racquetball.
JC (46:46):
[Laughter] Right, I had to watch those guys I played racquetball with. But no, I didn't tell you this. My son
Michael came here and he got free tuition because I taught here. My daughter Jessica...and my wife got
a second degree here. So I saved tons of money. My oldest went to SUNY Albany. So that's another thing
that I was very grateful for. But even if those things weren't involved, I was here for the long haul. I liked
what I was doing.
GN (47:27):
Yeah. It would be hard to match it someplace else with the same-
JC (47:31):
It was a godsend. It was a godsend. I think God had something to do with it. And it prepared me nicely
for retirement.
GN (47:41):
Tell me about it.
JC (47:42):
Yeah, I mean, the retirement plan was wonderful here.


GN (47:48):
They pay us to stay home now. I love that.
JC (47:51):
Yeah. God was good to me in getting me this job. I remember Linda...when I was waiting to hear from
the college about the job, she was down in New York and she went to St Patrick's Cathedral and lit a
candle there and soon after Andrew called me. Andrew Malloy.
GN (48:10):
Okay. Well, is there anything I didn't ask you or you'd like to say? I mean, historians will be turning over
these pages in the years to come and want to know what else did Joe have to say?
JC (48:25):
No. I hope Marist lasts a long time and I hope it is true to its traditions. It was a wonderful experience for
me.
GN (48:46):
Thank you very much.
JC (48:47):
You're welcome.

“End of Interview”