1
Lynne Doty – June 18
th
2014









Lynne Doty
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY
Transcribed by Wai Yen Oo
For the Marist College Archives and Special Collections














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Lynne Doty – June 18
th
2014

Transcript –
Lynne Doty
Interviewee:
Lynne Doty
Interviewer:
Gus Nolan
Interview Date:
June 18
th
2014
Location:
Marist College Archives and Special Collections

Topic:
Marist College History

See Also:
Subject Headings: Doty, Lynne



Marist College Faculty
Marist College History



Marist College (Poughkeepsie, New York)
Summary:
Lynne Doty reflects on her early education experiences, her education at New Paltz,
landing a job at Marist College as a professor in the Mathematics Department. She discusses her
experiences as part of committees at the college. She discusses the students and the level of
education at the college, how it has developed and changed over the forty years she has been part
of the faculty. She discusses her post-retirement plans as well with Gus Nolan.












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Lynne Doty – June 18
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2014

00:25
Gus Nolan:
Good morning. This is Wednesday, June 18
th
and today we have the privilege
of interviewing Professor Lynne Doty. She’s been with a college a good number of years not
forty, but almost thirty-nine I think is what the number is. Good morning, Lynne.
00:42
Lynne Doty:
Morning Gus.
00:43
GN:
Lynne, I like to start with a little picture, snapshot of the early years, where were you
born, growing up, grade school. Just talk freely about that for a few minutes.
00:56
LD:
I don't know. I was born the same place where both my parents were born, over in
Otisville. Now known as the home of one of the big federal correctional facilities. Grew up there,
went to school there, went to a very small school, but got smaller as I progressed through grade.
One building K through 12, seventeen people in my graduating class.
01:20
GN:
Very small community.
01:22
LD:
We kept our school even while school districts were centralizing. We were one of the
last ones to get absorbed. It's now part of the Minisink Central School District.
01:32
GN:
Through that period, did you have a particular interests? Did you develop music
talent? Did you develop hobbies stamp collection, baking, home?
01:47
LD:
I actually did collect stamps for a while. But probably the two activities I spent the
most time on would be sports of any kind in the world. Luckily, my mother had been very good
at sports so she thought it was fine that I wanted to play sports. And I helped my father in his
auto mechanics garage. So I learned a whole lot about auto mechanics. And I used to pump gas
all the time.
02:13
GN:
Are you an only child?
02:14
LD:
Yes.
02:17
GN:
High school in the same area?
02:19
LD:
That was it. K through twelve, Otisville High School.


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02:24
GN:
Same people all the way through?
02:26
LD:
Yeah.
02:27
GN:
Pretty much.
02:28
LD:
Sometimes my mother would substitute because she was certified as a gym teacher.
She taught kindergarten for a while cause they need somebody to do it and she could teach high
school science so she would frequently substitute. And I would go from my third or fourth grade
classroom up to sit in the corner of the classroom she was using as a substitute. All one building,
no one can conceive of anything on that small scale anymore.
03:00
GN:
Moving on graduate school must be out of town though. Did you go to college?
03:05
LD:
Yeah I went to Stroudsburg in Pennsylvania as an undergrad. And then it was a
terrible time to get jobs. I finished undergrad in ‘72. So I well … I kind of decided I would be a
Community College teacher because having done student teaching, I decided I didn’t really want
to do high school anymore. So I went to New Paltz, got a teaching assistantship at New Paltz that
would remit my tuition and pay me a little money. So I did the beginning the Master’s level
graduate school stuff at New Paltz. And it's a good thing I did because that's how I got hired.
They called me up one day said. Actually Marist called me. I believe it was Kevin Carolan that
called and said that they had just lost somebody in the Math department. They called New Paltz,
“You got anybody. You just graduated that we could use.” And they said me. So I basically got
my job after I'd sort of given up trying to get a job because it was a terrible time to get jobs in the
mid-seventies.
04:10
GN:
OK, how did you hear about Marist? New Paltz?
04:13
LD:
That's how I heard about it.
04:16
GN:
You didn't know about it before then?
04:17
LD:
No.


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Lynne Doty – June 18
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04:18
GN:
We weren’t very well-known in the mid-70s.
04:20
LD:
No. I am on the other side of the river to, and that was like the great divide for a long,
long time.
04:26
GN:
Was there such as an interview for you?
04:28
LD:
Oh yes. Yes. As a matter of fact, John Ritschdorff told me this long, long after the
fact, it was after Janet Schillinger even left. They interviewed me and another woman. And I
can’t remember distinctly whether they interviewed a third person or not. But anyway John's
report to me was I got the job because Janet didn't like the other woman.
04:53
GN:
That's fair enough.
04:55
LD:
So I did have an interview, I had lunch over at Mariner’s Harbor.
05:01
GN:
Okay, we gave lunch in those days.
05:03
LD:
Yes, and this is like the last week in August.
05:08
GN:
So, obviously you really didn't know anybody at Marist then coming this way. OK.
Let’s start. How were the first class? Did you have introduction to algebra or?
05:20
LD:
Oh yeah, I was hired on a two-year replacement contract for two people who were on
sabbatical. This was the years when Marist hired people to replace people going on sabbatical.
Richard LaPietra and George McCannally. And they were retooling to do computer science.
Because science was down and computer science looked like a comer. Yeah so they were off
retooling. One year, the other one’s another year and they gave me a two-year term contract. And
that’s basically how I got started. So of course, I got low-level courses; two College Algebras
and I think Statistics and Operational Models. And I looked at my old gradebooks. The two I’ve
kept … I threw out everything else in-between. But the oldest grade books I had, I had forty
students in every section.
06:14
GN:
Forty students.


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Lynne Doty – June 18
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2014

06:16
LD:
Yes. I think there was one that was thirty-four so I didn't quite make one hundred
sixty. But I was between one hundred-fifteen and one hundred-sixteen students.
06:22
GN:
And in those days was it two sessions a week or three?
06:25
LD:
I believe three to start with. It very quickly went two.
06:33
GN:
The other professors. Do you recall who else was teaching at the time?
06:38
LD:
John Ritschdorff, Janet Schillinger, Kevin Carolan, and Dave Angles. I think Dave
was here for one year and then he, he might have been here for two years. The year he left that's
when I got switched to a tenure track. And Janet left the same year. She was married and her
husband's job was in I believe in Hartford. So Dave Angles who was tenured and Janet
Schillinger who was tenured left. Kind of left. John Ritschdorff,, Kevin Carolan, and me the new
hire so I got shifted to a tenured line.
07:15
GN:
Had Kevin move into the space commander things? He worked for LaPietra didn't he
in the office as an assistant dean or something?
07:24
LD:
I think he had just stopped being assistant dean. I am not sure but he was definitely
teaching in our department.
07:32
GN:
Had LaPietra come back yet from his…? Well, he went to Japan somewhere along
there to didn't he?
07:40
LD:
I don't know. Louis Zuccarello was academic vice president when I got hired.
07:44
GN:
OK that's five years. Richard was in for five years I think and then Lou came. Okay I
lost contact.
07:52
LD:
Yeah, I remember Kevin being some sort of the administrator in Greystone, but not
for very long. So it might have been one of the one year transition.
08:00
GN:
Larry Sullivan use to call him the space commander. He was in charge of all the
classrooms. Who was going to go to what classroom et cetera. So that was it. Let's talk about the


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2014

students those early students, how would you define them? Were they… you know?
08:15
LD:
I think they were much more first-generation college students, and they were. I
believe very aware of the fact that their parents were making major league sacrifices to get them
here and they were for the most part very motivated. I mean some of them were in over their
heads. But that was usually people who had a math requirement who weren't math majors. The
math majors for the most part were just as serious then as they are now.
08:42
GN:
Just a comment on that now, are they in your time here… How have the students
changed?
08:49
LD:
Oh, I think they're much more sophisticated socially than they were when I was first
here.
09:56
GN:
Academically. Do they come better prepared, better motivated?
09:01
LD:
I don't think there are any better motivated. It might be a little less motivated. I think
it's more like “Well everybody else goes to college now so I just have to do it.” I just don't think
they write it as well. Although you don't see quite as much writing in mathematics. I don't think
they integrate knowledge as well and I think they're much more, “What do I need to do?” This is
a different thing. “What do I need to do to get a good grade in this course?” There are more
students like that there were always some student like that there are fewer, I could think of a few,
but there are fewer this like “Oh this is interesting I want to think about this.” I'm not just talking
about in the majors’ course. I had a basketball player, a men’s basketball player one time in
excursions and he got really interested in this. This is kind of interesting. I think about this stuff.
And that was very unusual.
10:04
GN:
So actually the present students … they’re the financially better off because
everything is upgraded with all votes going up with everything else being higher here. But are
they career-oriented? Are they looking for the job at the end of the line?



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Lynne Doty – June 18
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2014

10:23
LD:
Yes, I think so. A big percentage of them … either the job or graduate school. A
bigger percentage. And maybe I shouldn't say a bigger percentage but they are very definitely
career oriented. Maybe not quite as much as their parents would like, but they’re career oriented.
10:43
GN:
Let’s just change the focus a little bit. You used an expression when I wrote to you
about coming that sometimes it seems that you’ve taught in three different colleges. OK. Just
give me a thumbnail view of the change from the college that you first came … which was a
kind of primitive … I mean building-wise, campus-wise. I guess it was … We were all in one
building. I guess in Donnelly for offices and for the classrooms of the most part.
11:10
LD:
Well, my office was in Fontaine. So I'm not back quite that far but the classrooms
were all essentially in Donnelly. There were one or two really small seminar rooms in Fontaine.
The classes were in Donnelly. I came when the college was on the brink of going under. And you
were very aware of that. It was like “Okay, we've got to get fifty more. It’s August 20
th
and we
need fifty more students to balance the budget.” “Okay, we'll get fifty more students.” And so, it
was good for me because it wasn't the pressure of this is a really high-powered academic
institution and you’re going to look like a stupid backwater hick-town person. It was much more
of “Oh, gee it’s nice you're working here, we're glad to see you, what can we do to help?” It was
much more of a sort of this is now a community that you're going to live in. We're going to exist
because we stick together. And I remember Louis Zuccarello apologizing when he said, “I’d hate
to tell you what the salary for this job is going to be.” But I didn't care because I hadn’t been able
to get a job on my own anyways. I told you it was really bad times for getting jobs in the mid-70s
in anything. It was one of these low growth times but inflation was going crazy. It was just bad
time so I was happy to have even a two-year gig because I thought at that point, “Okay, I have to
go out and look again. I have two years' experience that'll make a big difference.” So that was,
you know, you always were aware of
oh my god we’re on the brink of going under
. Something's


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Lynne Doty – June 18
th
2014

gonna happen and something did. Linus stepped down. We get Dennis. Dennis comes in. And so
that's the first college in six years or so. Yeah. Which turned out to be my probationary period.
And as soon as I got moved to a tenured line, Ritschdorff said to me, “You gotta go and enroll in
a PhD program. If you’re going to get tenured, you at least got to be enrolled.” And that was
fairly typical for mathematics in the late seventies. It wasn't just the Marist phenomenon. That
was a little more in mathematics anyway widespread. You had to have something past a Master’s
Degree, but you really didn't need to have the PhD to work in a four-year college. Well that's
changed dramatically since then, but at that time so alright enrolled in a program. And I'm very
happy that he did that, I mean I'm very happy that the college sort of kept the pressure on after
Dennis came. You've got to finish your degree now and we're not just happy that you ABD. You
got tenured. You want to get promoted? You need a degree, fine. This provided an impetus but I
think having had the sort of six years of there's really not any other expectations other than you
serve on a bunch of committees and you teach your brains out. That's all we're really looking for.
I think that gave me a chance to kind of get settled down. When I went off to the real PhD level
graduate work, I was kind of ready for it. So I think it worked out very well for me. But so the
second phase is like the first half of Dennis, maybe Dennis from when he came until I say mid-
90s.
14:47
GN:
To mid-90s, ok.
14:49
LD:
Okay. I think so because I think he's mellowed since the mid-90s. That was my …
And I'm guessing mid-90s cause I know it was the time of Bill Olson and the payback for you
guys rejected this contract so I am not going to invite you to my house anymore for the luncheon
or for the Welcome Back in September. It's a real war then. I kind of liked it better then because
it was us against, we were kind of a group … we were united, you know. Bill Olson, ten-friend
thing and still a faculty felt more like a group right. I didn't feel like every man for himself.


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th
2014

Which is now what I would say the third phase is … I guess we've progressed to what a modern
college is. I mean it’s basically … And I think largely is a result of the way people perceive
things happening in that first phase of this … you know Dennis one. And I don't want this to
sound like I'm mad at Dennis because I think without Dennis we probably wouldn't have jobs
right now. If he probably hadn’t come in and be as what, hard about what he wanted to do and
really kind of say no, we can't do it like this anymore. It was such a shock. You probably seemed
worse than it was at the time but you know it was that phase of he really came in and said,
“You've got to pick up. You can't have … We got to have an academic institution here. You can't
be giving associate professors to people without PhDs. It was that phase where he went through
in the late eighties of ratcheting up the requirements and we backed off a little. And then we
went ahead again then it was. I think it was perceived as Dennis has convinced the board of
trustees that the professors were a bunch of jerks. And OK, they’re employees and we're going to
treat them like that. And you know maybe it had to be that way but it was certainly I think
perceived that way by a lot of faculty. And I think once he kind of got to a certain point, I mean
he instituted the Welcome Back reception.
17:08
GN:
Oh yeah, back in September.
17:11
LD:
We had ten years of “You guys didn't accept that contract and we're not having a
welcome back thing.” Then he kind of decided to go back and have that. And I think maybe he
got the place where he wanted to get it and now it's time to back off. And how do I want to be
remembered? And hey, most of the faculty don't know that first phase of Dennis. They’d have
been hired in the second phase of Dennis so he can easily do it and as I said, I don't want this to
seem anti-Dennis Murray. I think he probably had to do what he did and I didn't like it. I don't
think most of the faculty liked it, but I'm not prepared to say we'd be sitting here if he hadn't
done it either right. So I accept it. And at this point it's got way “too much every man for


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th
2014

himself” and I think this pressure to prepare students for careers. It’s not just the students doing it
now it's everybody telling us that's what we have to do. That was my sort of my parting comment
was I have run out of adaptability. You know I can't adapt any more.
18:17
GN:
And you made some changes along the way.
18:19
LD: A
nd I can't make any more.
18:22
GN:
But you have a lot to do also with the development of the faculty, the committees that
you were on. I mean I think about your rank and tenure or you know the old summer incentive
programs whatever they are.
18:40
LD:
I all so did negotiations a couple times. Once with Sue Lawrence and Howard
Goldman.
18:46
GN:
That's an idea you’d think about some of the past figurers who we’ve had; George.
Well even the names begging to escape me now. I don’t mean George Hooper, he's on a different
category, but Balch.
19:02
LD:
Oh I remember Roscoe, I liked Roscoe. I don't have anybody in the mold of a Roscoe
Balch anymore – insight of the sort of all eccentric college professor. Jerry White is
knowledgeable as Roscoe was but Roscoe just had a way of pontificating at faculty meeting.
19:22
GN:
I want to thank the members of the committee for their efforts but I am not going to
vote for it.
19:28
LD:
And he had good reason you know. He was never snide. He was always expressing
his opinion. Yeah, I miss Roscoe a lot.
19:40
GN:
Well fact that maybe the last point that you made is that you know the college now is
pretty much everyone that comes here is more interested in … I suppose in their own interest
about how can they develop and how can they make the next move on rather being committed to
a long term. I am not in the faculty now but I have a sense of people even the chairpeople that


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2014

come in, you know, don't stay too long. They’re like touching down here and making a little
name for themselves and then moving on. Okay, another change. How about … What strikes you
at the campus now? When you came on here in the 70s, we were pretty much a small-town
operation. You come on Marist now and you're impressed. How did this happen, how did this
change take place? What strikes you most in that? Are there buildings, Hancock, or the new
library. Not the new library, now it's the number of years old. The new music building, we call it
musical arts center, but only because we don’t have a music department, I guess.
20:57
LD:
Yeah, but we have a very active and big music program and we might not have a
department but then they are very active in promoting Marist off-campus too which I think that’s
very important. I think that’s why they have the new facilities. I mean the buildings have to
strike you. There’s no question about that but it's just that from an internal point of view that you
certainly can't fail to be struck by the physical changes. You know, the parking lot is now the
campus green. The first parking lot. But this is just a much more professionally-run operation.
Which I think it has to be but it's also just much less. You don't feel any sense of … At least I
don't feel any sense anymore. I don't feel as strongly as I felt before of “Gee, this place really
appreciates me. And I'm an integral part of this place and if I don't show up for work, somebody
is going to notice.” I don't have that sense anymore. Like “Oh well. You didn't show up for work
alright well. We’ll just get somebody in to teach your class.” It’s much more of a-
22:24

GN:
A business operation?
22:26

LD:
Well I was going to say a corporate operation as opposed to a community-centered
operation. And I'd be the first one to line up and say, “I'm not at all sure it could have survived as
a community operation.” But having said that I still miss it. I would like to feel more appreciated
than I do. I felt more appreciated in the first ten years I was here than I felt in the last thirty.
22:50
GN:
Is that so?




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th
2014

22:51
LD:
Yeah. You’re just a cog right now.
22:53
GN:
You weren’t very well-remunerated in the first ten years. Do you feel that you're
getting a fair shake now?
23:01
LD:
Oh yeah. One year when they first did the equity adjustment stuff there … We had
some big faculty meeting over in the Donnelly, the place where they used to have … I don't
know what the number of it is now … but the room we use have faculty meetings in the center of
Donnelly the big sort of lecture center.
23:19
GN:
Amphitheater kind of thing.
23:21
LD:
So we have some big meeting over there discussing equity adjustments or whatnot.
And Marilyn Porres is there because she's the one that's done all the stats. The meeting gets over
and I want to ask her about something else to do with statistics or data collection or something. It
might have something to do with the doing assessment back then even on a very small scale,
might have been something to do with the placement exams. It had nothing to do with equity
adjustments. But she was there so it was my time to buttonhole and ask her this question. So I
walked out and I get like within fifteen feet of her and she says, “You’re flagged. You’re
flagged. You're going to get a big equity.” She didn't say you're going to get a big equity
adjustment, but flag was the term that was being used or had been used in the meeting. That
certain people were flagged because their salaries were so out of whack with other salaries. So I
got a giant raise back the first year they did the equity adjustment to make up for how low my
salaries had been. And there was no other thing that compounded it. I got most of mine … I got
all my promotions before or I got all my promotions at the time when according to the handbook
you got five hundred dollars for a promotion and then they started … In the last twenty years, it's
been a thousand and now I think it's five thousand. So I was falling behind because I wasn't
getting much of an increment for promotions and my last promotion to full. There was …They


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2014

had instituted floors for the other salaries, but they didn't put a floor in for full professors so I'm
still, you know, I'm barely over the associate floor even though I've been promoted to full now.
So I kept falling behind. And then that one year, it was kind like this giant raise to make up for
the first sixteen years.
25:22
GN:
Then the income tax takes half of it back anyway.
25:25
LD:
Well no, I was able to make contributions to the supplemental retirement at that point.
Up until then, I couldn't. I missed a whole lot of big growth in the 80s, but what are you going to
do.
25:36
GN:
Yeah I must admit as much as the college was in hard times in the 70s and early 80s.
You know that period of time. One thing Foy did was to establish the TIAA-CREF.
25:49
LD:
Oh, I am so thankful for having been kind of enrolled in a retirement program without
having to think about it. It just happened.
25:57
GN:
That college is free. I mean that's ready. TIAA is paying you. The college is paying
its share of it. So now they’re paying me to stay home but I am getting more now than I get when
I was coming here so that was a part of it. Let's talk a little bit about the image of Marist. Now
there's negatives and positives I suppose in terms of it that. Dennis is pretty much a PR person.
You know he would like to have an article on the front page of The New York Times with your
next-year salary again.
26:39
LD:
Well I think that's why Lee Miringoff has gotten the support from MIPO that he's
gotten. That was a really smart move on Lee’s part. I don’t know if he planned it that way or it
just happened. Lee was hired the same year I was hired. So we kind of have that in common and
now we're both across the hall from each other cause my office is right across from MIPO now.
And that was really shrewd of Lee.
27:06
GN:
It was purely accidental. And as much as … I remember the very first times there


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th
2014

were exit polls being done from you know the local area. He had kids out, asking people coming
out. That’s the beginning of the osmosis of the development.
27:22
LD:
Well the first two years, he started to get serious about this. One summer, he hired
John Ritschdorff as the statistics consultant and in next summer, he hired me. So I wish I'd saved
the stubs from those paychecks and had Lee’s autograph on but I didn't and I might have been
fifty or hundred dollars for some was nominal. But yeah. He was starting to get into statistical
end of it and I mean it’s great. I'd much rather be known for MIPO then for sports programs.
So… more power to Lee I think it's great. He stumbled into it, fine but that's really.
28:02
GN:
He happens to be very accurate.
28:03
LD:
He’s very accurate.
28:04
GN:
He know his math. He had a PhD out of MIT so he's well. The other activity that you
did mention one earlier I like to go back to it: the music department. I have gone to a number of
their off-campus right performances mainly Christmas. They do this … Messiah and one of the
local churches and you know it's really an aesthetic experience, I mean. What they were able to
pull out of the closets here of those kids who had all of these you know grade school, high school
lessons. And we never knew we had them. So they really do perform and are you know...
28:52
LD:
It’s a real community asset. It really is.
28:56
GN:
Let me ask you. Back to the faculty not so much the salary but the workload and the
evaluation business that goes on now. Where are we in terms of the four-three, two-two, two-
three in terms of does everybody get the same teaching assignment?
29:22
LD:
No. I mean I think the standard one now for anyone whose professorial rank is four-
three. The teaching associates … some of them but not all of them are doing five-five.
29:42
GN:
OK those are the people without … That's just second tier who are on faculty.
29:50
LD:
Pretty much. They don’t need a terminal degree and they teach the introductory level


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th
2014

courses. Basically, I think what Marist and its faculty was trying to do … Was to have fewer
people who were at least … This was the stated argument I don't think it worked out that way.
Who were adjunct-ing at different places trying to piece something together. Let's put together a
package that we can afford to give them benefits. And they don't have a terminal degree and are
not going to be able to serve on evaluations and what not, but so we’ll make them do five-five,
but we will give them benefits. And that seem like a reasonable I think the faculty perceived it as
reasonable and sort of humane thing to do but it hasn't worked out that way. Yeah. In a sense that
I don't believe that most of the people who were hired were teaching associate had been adjunct
who had been piecing together jobs from different places. It just worked out differently for
whatever reason. And then there are people who get course releases for doing administrative
work. There's tons of those like core director of what not or Assistant Dean. And then there are
people who get scholarship course releases so you teach three-three instead of four-three.
31:20
GN:
Are you requested to attend professional development? Are you encouraged write a
paper, present a paper in the course of a year, either one semester or the other? Is that part of
evaluation that a chair would go through?
31:37
LD:
Oh yeah, if you haven't done something professionally, you're going to get an
unsatisfactory and you're going to get slightly less than the agreed upon merit raise and I know
instances of people to whom it has happened. And they’ve said, “You know I didn’t do anything
this year so I got docked.” Yeah, so you at least better show up at a conference and deliver some
sort of a paper. The problem with this is … it's hard for me to generalize because expectations
are different in a liberal arts than in math and the one thing Roger is pretty good at, our dean is
coming from a mathematics point of view he realizes we're not going to be pumping out a paper
a year. I don't care who you are.
32:19

GN:
Yeah.


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Lynne Doty – June 18
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32:21

LD:
And so there's not an expectation that you are going to crank out a paper every year.
But there's an expectation if you want to get a satisfactory evaluation that you're doing something
every year. And that if you want to get the course release for scholarship, you better have a paper
every couple of years. Which is still a fair amount of mathematics. It's not easy to do. I mean
when I mean Joe Kirkland was kind of taking that sort of golden boy of mathematics in terms of
publishing because he publishes a lot. When he was chair of FAC, he lost his course release
because he couldn't keep up with the publishing and being the chair of FAC. When I was the
Chair of FAC, I lost the course release the following year because I couldn't keep up with it then.
And it also happens with the departing chair who always got course releases, Joanne Gavin. She
publishes her brains out but when she was on FAC, she lost her course release. She said I haven’t
taught four courses in a semester in years. So yeah there so much more of an expectation for
publishing which is why there's less of an expectation for involvement in setting up any sort of a
feeling of community. I can't do that. I don't get rewarded for that. Rewards are for doing this
stuff. So I’ll do the stuff they give me the rewards for.
33:43
GN:
How about advisement? You're asked to do thirty?
33:46
LD:
Oh no, I've never had that many. Worst case I had maybe fourteen or fifteen. We just
don't have that many majors. And yeah, I get non-majors. I used to get a lot more non-majors
when I taught excursions but now it’s kind of died with the new core and got farmed out or
gotten replaced by the introductory courses, these freshman seminars. The other sections I
believe are taught all by adjuncts now. We used to get undecided majors taking excursions and
undecided they’d give to any of the full-time people who have low numbers and I would have
low numbers because we didn't have that many Math majors.
34:24
GN:
What’s your feeling about the union thing, now?
34:28
LD:
The adjuncts have to do what they want to do. I really think it's their decision to


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make.
34:35
GN:
Adjunct salaries though are pretty much at a base level.
34:39

LD:
Oh yeah.
34:40

GN:
And it seems to be some inequity as in so much of the College is taught by adjuncts
that not much, not more is not given to them in terms of that. As bad as Marist … Well not as
bad as Marist is … They want to do it. They applied to come and this is the name of the game. I
know a one case where someone who works here and works at New Paltz and we pay better than
New Paltz in terms of you know so. But to belong to the union, it would mean to pay two
different union fees.
35:13
LD:
Yes I think I'm not sure but I think New Paltz adjuncts might get benefits. I'm not
sure.
35:22
GN:
If you had a chance to go to the faculty board, the board of the trustees rather ….
What do you think is a need that Marist has that is not being articulated, faculty, or buildings, or?
35:36
LD:
I try not to think about it anymore. After I spent two of my last or actually three of my
last five years at Marist on FAC, I’m really seriously trying not to think about it anymore.
35:52
GN:
What particular kind of … the equity thing, or what’s the thorn?
36:04
LD:
I don't know. If I thought about it for a while, I'm never very quick at thinking of
things. I thought about for a while I might be able to come up with something but I mean I sat at
the Board of Trustees meeting and did my best potted plant imitation for two years because it
really wasn't anything they were talking about that they needed to talk to me about.
36:22
GN:
Ok. Let's move on. More happy things. What are some of the more happy
experiences you've had here? In terms of students’ performances and moving on or establishing
courses, getting courses in place or recommendations for people to come on board or leave.
36:49
LD:
Well I guess. You know I’ve sort of always joked with Joe Kirkland and Jim


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2014

Helmreich that probably one of the best things I did when I was … We didn't have any
department chairs. We had coordinators then. You didn't get any releases and you didn't get any
money and you just had to do a lot of clerk stuff. I was the coordinator when the math
department hired them and I think that was a very successful search. Joe and Jim.
37:18
GN:
He also got the Faculty of the Year award somewhere along the line.
37:23
LD:
As I said, Joe's kind of the golden boy. He’s the gold standard everybody looks at. I
have to say in the early years, it was taking my dog to class. That was really cool and it was fun.
It was a great way to socialize dogs. But that got stopped by Marc VanderHeyden so. Couldn’t
bring the dog to work anymore. So I sneaked her in once in a while. I snuck my the latest one …
I sneaked in during finals this semester I had a day where I just had office hours and I didn't have
to give a final. I sneaked her in the backdoor I walked down the – She’s obedience trained, she's
got her CD. We walked down to the copy room and I happened to go by where the math lab is.
The kids say, “Look. There’s a dog and they all come running out to pet the dog. Oh, this is so
great. This is much … this is so relaxing.” And the funny thing is that you know there are
campuses where they do encourage well-behaved dogs to be on campus because the people over
at student services recognize the fact that they are really good stress relievers. But that's a whole
other story.
38:41
GN:
I just paralleled. Every Tuesday morning I work at Vassar Hospital.
38:45
LD:
They have the therapy dogs.
38:46
GN:
A guy comes in with his therapy dog. Got the same kind of reaction. People just want
to touch it.
38:53
LD:
Oh and every kid that came into my office that day was like “Oh yeah. Let’s pet the
dog.” She’s just sitting there being great. The first one I had he used to come to faculty meeting.
I remember slammer a faculty meeting. And Slammer falls all over, it’s time to stop the faculty


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2014

meeting it's gone on too long. He's getting bored.
39:15
GN:
You’re here forty years. There must have been something. Why did you stay?

39:19
LD:
Well I thought seriously about trying to leave in my mid-fifties but it was just not
really going to ever work out. Because I was a full professor. It's very hard to move as a full
professor because they wonder, “What kind of salary are you going to want here?” And so I
thought about it. By the time I thought about it, it was basically too late in my career. So okay…
I need health insurance. So it's got to stay in some kind of job where you have health insurance. I
kind of, the department I am in is very … we’ve had some ups and downs, but they've never
been really is dramatically awful in some other departments I've heard about. And for the last ten
years, we've really functioned quite well as a department. We might have disagreements about
things, but everybody's always been very civil about it and you know, “Hey, you can have your
other opinion and that's fine.” The next day we’re going to walk down the hall and talk about
mathematics with you. The department I've been in has been very nice. We've made some really
good hires. We've got really good students now. The qualities of students is astonishingly better,
in terms of the math majors at least. The high end of the math majors. We’re still getting some
“do we really want this person teaching high school?” Yeah ok, she'll be ok. But I think that the
most recent thing I remember. It doesn't happen very often. I think the kids just don't think about
it but I was doing the open house for already-admitted students in April and a couple of more
math majors are there. They at least have some students there. So this one parent said I think
Joan, no Rich McGovern was doing a presentation and I was there. And I think Tracey might
have been there just to have a few more people around. And this one parent says “What’s this
course combinatorics?” But he turns and looks at me because it's the course I teach. Luckily
those two students had just finished taking it, graph theory and combinatorics. So I describe a
little bit about what it was and then these two kids jump in. And both of them I really don't think


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2014

either one of them were trying to be nice to me because I know them. And the one kid we had
this running thing about “Have I done proof-right yet for you because I taught you how to do
proofs and reasoning.” They both said that it was one of the best classes they’d had as their
major. One girl actually said it's the class I enjoyed the most. And she was an Applied Math
major. She's taken a ton of classes with Matt, Matthew Glomski, the most popular math teacher
we have at the moment and Scott Frank. And she said, “No. Combinatorics was really a great
course, so totally.” She is kind of a very upbeat person, but you know every once in a while, a
student will stop by and say, “You know that was a really good course.” And it’s just the kind of
thing you forget to do when you're a student. And I think the first time it happened to me back in
the 80s… I thought, “You know. I really should call this high school teacher up. I know where
she lives, I bet I can find her phone number and say how much I appreciated the things that she
had told me in high school.” So it prompted me to sort of…
42:49
GN:
Reflect on your own past?
42:51
LD:
Yeah and go thank a couple of people who I had not really said anything to before. So
that's sort of the best part when a student actually says, “God. That was a really good course.”
Like this basketball player, he wasn't a starter. He was a second stringer, but he played men’s
basketball and you know and he was taking excursions… like this was probably twelve years
ago. Taking excursions and for his second math course year of course… And he said, “I want to
figure this out. This is getting really interesting.” Whoa. Okay, we can do this.
43:34
GN:
Very nice. I hate to bring this up. But are there disappointments along the way that
has bothered you? A student that you were hoping and turned out … maybe not doing their own
work? Or was there some problem or other that you know … Just as this happy thing does … Is
there a negative thing?
44:01
LD:
There probably are but I try not to dwell on them so I'm hoping it kind of left.


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Lynne Doty – June 18
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2014

44:06
GN:
Alright now. Let’s stop there. Here's a final question will take a while for you. I
wanted to explore this little a bit. Simply this: With the price of things today of going to college
and the economy the way it is, with the opportunities that students have, is college worth the
investment?

44:33
LD:
I think college is worth the investment for about two-thirds of the kids that come here.
And I think that it's worth the investment for a lot of people. I really truly believe that there are a
lot of people who come to college because well that's what you do after high school and I really
seriously wish that we had something more of acceptable alternative with emphasis on
acceptable. If being in the trades, we're like a guild system that they had in Europe for years and
you know I think actually still exist to some extent. It's not considered a failure to be a plumber.
You got to be a smart person to be a plumber. You can't be any idiot and be a plumber its
physical labor you're going to have to move up to some point a supervisory role. But I wish we
had more alternatives like that … That were considered acceptable to some kids who just come
here because well that's what you do after high school. And I think partly this is just … I don't
come from a background where people in my family all went to college. My mother went to
college so she can be a high school teacher. My father was a mechanic. I know you cannot be
stupid and do those jobs. He had gone to a tech school because he was one of the first guys to
work on automatic transmissions back in the fifties, slip and slide with power glide. He had a
whole separate side business where other garages would send him the transmission already out of
the car. Because he had these books he had through, the stuff he had to do to fix theses
transmission. The other garages would put them back in. So in his own area, he was highly
respected but I suppose people in the town who were maybe … Actually I don't think that
happened as much in the 50s and 60s. I think there was more of a recognition that these other
kinds of jobs who maybe don't require a strong academic background required intelligence. And


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it's nothing to do with Marist. It's a commentary on the entire social structure in the US. Why
does everybody have to go to college? I don't get that. I mean I have often said I think a good
third of the students that are here probably would be better off someplace else but you know that
they are here and I got a job so I don't say too loudly.

47:23
GN:
Okay. Well that’s the academic view. Now spread it out a little bit, what else do they
get out of coming? I mean they meet a whole new …

47:32
LD:
I think they come for…
47:35
GN:
partying.
47:36
LD:
I think, well this probably answers the question in sort of around the block way.
Several years ago, we were doing one of these think it might have been the Middle States thing.
And I'm on one of those subcommittees like I'm always on. Well you know residential college is
not going to be in existence in another twenty years because it's all going to be online and I am
like “No it isn't.” Because the residential college has become and this is going to sound
derogatory … I don't mean it to, but it's the best analogy … finishing school. This is the place
where students come and a guild could provide the same experience. This is the place where
students finally come to not be sort of – what’s the word I want – protected by their parents from
any possible thing that could go wrong. And it's the place where Peter Krog and I have had this
conversation repeatedly and he's a generation younger than I am. We are now the adults. We say,
“No. You made a bad choice. You decided you weren't going to do any homework this
semester.” And you know what the consequence of that bad choice is? You fail the course. So
we have become the people who I think adults and parents used to do this and I think they do it
less. They sort of engaged or allow their offspring to get away with things that they shouldn't get
away with because they're trying to be their friends or whatever it is. God knows I'm not a parent
so I shouldn't be talking. But this is the place where you sort of make the transition to the hard


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Lynne Doty – June 18
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2014

reality of you've messed up on a job, you're going to get fired. And I don't think they've had that
many experiences in high school because the high school teachers are under great pressure to
adapt to the students because the parents are going to come in and jump all over you if you don't
let Johnny retake the test ‘cause he had a headache. Whereas here, “Hey you didn't do the
homework. Sorry, there's a price to be paid for that. You’ve made this decision.” And here is the
consequence. So I think we're the bridge between the very protective and overly supportive
cocoon they've been in with their parents who are trying to be still providing that as helicopter
parents while they're at school but we're kind of in a position to resist that. And give them, the
sort of realization that they can stand on their own two feet. And they do have to be able to figure
out how to negotiate bad things happening to them. And I think they haven't had that as much as
I think my generation had in high school. What do you mean? No, this isn't going to pass and the
parents would say, “Well I don't want to hear that you gave the teacher a hard time.” And you
didn't go home and tell your parents, you were having a hard time … You shut up because you
were going to get in trouble. And now I think there's the tables have sort of change so I think the
residential college is going to survive for a long time no matter how many online courses there
are. Because we’re the bridge. It’s a safe environment to mess up. If you mess up, you’re not
going to get in big trouble, but if you mess up there’re going be some consequences. Yes, it's the
maturity of the responsibility gene. It's … They're very socially adept and I’ve said that before so
it's not that kind of maturing. It's the idea that for decisions that you make you will be held
accountable. And you are responsible for doing the assigned work.
51:44
GN:
Back to that social thing again. Besides the maturing and the responsibility what they
do, there is an interaction I would take it because most live on campus away from home.
51:57
LD:
I think the reason they take Marist not for our academic programs necessarily it's
because we had really good, safe campus. The student services … If you want to talk about


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2014

something that's changed dramatically at Marist in forty years, the student services are so much
better. And now I think that choice of Marist for students who are looking at variety of colleges I
think that the academic programs are down the list. I don't think that's first on anybody's list.
52:32
GN:
It's a nice place to live. Nice place to come.
52:36
LD:
It's a safe environment. It's not a radical environment. Don't even know if there are
any radical environments anymore. It's a safe place to make that transition.
52:52
GN:
So you don't see any problem then with this so-called computer learning, online
learning, staying home and taking courses. The campus is still a place to go and get all this other
stuff.
53:06
LD:
And you talk to the kids. The ones I’ve talked to, the guy who was the student
government rep two years ago when I was … The first year I was chair of FAC, they flat-out
asked him one day, “What do you think about online courses?” And he said well. They were
talking about online for undergraduates. He said, “Well, I took one and I didn't like it. I'd much
rather be in a classroom and have the interaction with the other students that you get in the
classroom.” So you know online is good for adults who can't come to a classroom, who already
have a job, maybe trying to pick up some skills. There has to be a reason for the adult to want to
get a grip on the material is being present in the course because otherwise you’d pay somebody
to take coursework for you. Nobody checks on that. And that's really why you don't want to have
too much online stuff as undergraduate. Because somebody else sits and takes your test. There's
no way to guard against that. That's why I've never taught an online course and I just … I don't
think it works for the population that the Math department is trying to serve.
54:20
GN:
How you gonna spend next twenty years now? You won't have Marist to come to
every day.
54:26
LD:
Oh God, it will be such a relief. Well, I get take some vacations in offseason which


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2014

you could never actually.
54:32
GN:
Where are actually you living now? Where is home?
54:35
LD:
Between Clintondale and Modena over in Ulster County. That's where I’ve lived
since I got tenured, lived in the same place, the same crummy commute.
54:44
GN:
One dog or two dogs?
54:46
LD:
Two. You know who one of whom I just barely got started to training again last year
because I just said I gotta do it now you get too old. So I'm going to be able to obedience train
the next little puppy I get from day one which I really wasn't able to do that well with working.
Maybe to do all the deferred maintenance in my house that has not gotten done. If it’s not broke I
haven't fixed it. Take care of that stuff. Maybe finally seriously instead of dabbling learn
German, I've been dabbling trying to learn German. Now I'm going to be able to.
55:27
GN:
At your age, you want to pick up a foreign language?
55:30
LD:
Oh, I started doing that fifteen years ago. Other side of your brain. Trying to hold
dementia at bay, you use other side of your brain. And I know somebody who speaks German
fluently so I could not necessarily speak with that person because you can ruin somebody’s
accent in a big hurry. But if I had questions about the books I was trying to read or the cartoons I
was looking at, what is going on here and then I could get an answer.
55:59
GN:
Is there a paper you gonna write in mathematics now? A teacher adds a word to
something like this?
56:06
LD:
Oh I'm working on a paper right now. And I know what I'm going to do for the next
year, it's an extension of this, using something that I haven't, I don't really know too well. But I
went to a lecture by Professor (?) when I was at New Paltz he came over here to give an A.C.M.
lecture, David Clark using something called evolutionary or genetic algorithms. And a problem
he described well he was describing a totally different problem, but he said and this is a new


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2014

approach in mathematics and in order to use it in a problem you have to have these conditions
met. And he's going through and there is a problem I am working on that is like that. So you
know I've got a book that he recommended. So when I finished the paper I'm working on now
which is in the final stages of I got a proofread it and draw some pictures and get it inserted. It's
the same topic but expanded to a larger class of graphs so I know that's what I'm going to be
working on. I will have more time that I’m… I won’t be trying to be doing it in the between
grading piles of paper. I can kind of concentrate on it now as opposed to bits and starts. So I
know exactly what I am going to do.
57:14
GN:
Very good. Well we’re almost an hour through. Is there something I didn't ask you
about that you would like to add to this? We went around the loop about changes on the campus,
on the faculty, on the students?
57:28
LD:
Well you know you start to think about, especially I was thinking about fifteen years
ago could I, is this a reasonable times. Actually more like twenty years ago. You know should I
think about trying to move to another place? Then I think back on that now it's just the way it’s
worked out for me was totally serendipitous. I didn't apply for a job at Marist. It was Marist
calling New Paltz and New Paltz saying, “Well, you know she just finished. She’s right here. She
might be available you should at least interview.” Totally serendipitous. And the two years
converting to a tenured line. Totally serendipitous. Janet Schillinger gets married, moves. Dave
Angles decides it is time for him to get real academic job someplace that he can do better than
Marist, he leaves. The whole department decamps so I get switched to a tenured line and totally
unplanned. The planning part sort a came with John saying “You got to go and enroll in a PhD
program if you want to get tenured.” Ok so I did that I enrolled in PhD. Program. I wind up
taking a course, the second course I took at Stevens taught by somebody who wasn't supposed to
teach. It was a stat course. Here well in teaching here I should take statistics down here because I


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Lynne Doty – June 18
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2014

haven't taken statistics since undergraduate. Maybe you should actually learn the stuff I'm trying
to teach. So I take this course and the guy who’s supposed to teach got a sabbatical a semester
before so another guy comes into to teach it. And statistics isn't his specialty but you know
enough that he can teach graduate statistics. He’s a functional analyst, they can teach anything.
Partway through the semester and meeting at night you know I teach my four courses I drive
down in the afternoon driver.
59:28
GN:
Stevens Institute
59:30
LD:
Yeah, drive down there. Counter-rush hour, thank God. I take the class from I think
6:30 to 8:30, drive back now not a whole lot of traffic then unless you make the mistake of this
being on a Monday night and there's Monday Night Football at Giants Stadium. Got caught in
that once … eight lanes of traffic sitting still on one of those humpback bridges … only
happened to me once/ And the guy walks over to me. I think at the break or maybe at the end of
class. He says, “Who are you doing your dissertation with?” And I said, “I don't know.” He says,
“You’re doing it with me.” So I am not even thinking about a dissertation. He said, “Okay.
You’re doing it with me. I am a graph theorist. This is the course you sign up for next year.” So I
signed up for the course I get down there and everybody else's had at least an undergraduate
course in graph theory. He says, “Don't worry about it. Read this book.” So I read through the
book. I get caught up and it’s fine. This is interesting. And so you know he winds up being my
dissertation adviser and I didn't seek him out. He found me. The whole thing has been
serendipitous. I think given my sort of psychology and my mathematical preparation that this
was kind of the best place I could have landed. Because I wasn't ready to go into a PhD. program
when I finished a master's program right. This wasn't sort of psychologically ready for it because
I didn't realize I could do this stuff. It was kinda interesting. I was doing fine at New Paltz, but
it’s New Paltz. It’s not a real math program. You know I didn’t go to Columbia or NYU or any


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Lynne Doty – June 18
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2014

of those really big fancy places. So I'm thinking well. Okay, well go teach. And the lucky thing
is see when I first came here yeah I had to teach four section of forty students each, but that's
basically all I had to do. Now I had to be on committees a lot because it's like Midge Schratz, Flo
Michaels, Lynne Doty, Janet Block and that's it and Janet Schillinger. That’s your women. Carry
Landau and you got a committee. You've got to have one of those on it. So yeah, you got stuck
on a ton of committees, but I could concentrate on the teaching part for the first few years which
is the luxury that people coming out of grad school don't have now. Plus I actually taught my
own classes at New Paltz when I had a teaching assistantship. We had a supervisor professor
who taught one section of the same course we were all teaching but we basically taught our own
classes and he would come in and watch us a couple times a semester. And so I got to
concentrate on the teaching part of before I got thrown into oh god I got to teach full time and try
to finish a degree. And just the way the college changed, every time I might have thought, Geez,
I don't really have to keep up with this because I've got so much other stuff to do because we
never got down to less than a four-four load till I was way done with my last promotion. The
college would kind of ratchet up things a little bit and I said well you know maybe I can do this.
So it kind of like I was in the perfect situation for my own psychological development. It just fit
in right in with how Marist was moving up.
01:02:58
GN:
You grew with Marist and the whole thing.
01:03:02
LD:
And it kind of worked to my advantage in the sense that things happen at exactly
the right time to sort of prod me on to do something else. That I might not have chosen to do on
my own. But once I actually finished a degree and seen that I could get papers published, it’s like
gee I am really interested in this, I got to find time to do it. I will find time. You know. Alright I
am teaching one-hundred-and-twenty students. I'll find a way. So that sort of. As much as I think
there are sort of downsides to how Marist has changed, I mean that particular part of it worked


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2014

just perfectly for me … couldn't have worked any better.
01:03:44
GN:
Well, I have only one thing to say. We're certainly happy that you were here with
me forty years. You certainly filled a lot of slots along the way and to what a good number of
students.
01:03:57
LD:
Jack of all trades, master of none.
01:03:59
GN:
I wouldn't say that. No, no, no. I know the college is grateful even though they
don't specifically say it other than say well we're going to keep you on the list. And by the way
you entitled to join the retired faculty.
01:04:17
LD:
John Scilleppi has already informed me when I wrote him an e-mail.
01:04:21
GN:
Alright thank you very much.
01:04:25
LD:
Thank you Gus, it was fun.