Brother Paul Ambrose and Jack Gartland

Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY
Transcribed by Amy Dugan
For the Marist College Archives and Special Collections













Ambrose, Brother Paul
Gartland, Jack

Transcript – Brother Paul Ambrose and Jack Gartland


Interviewees:
Brother Paul Ambrose and Jack Gartland
Interviewer:
Anthony Cernera
Interview Date:
Location:
Lowell Thomas
Topic:
Marist College History

Subject Headings:

Ambrose, Brother Paul



Gartland, Jack



Marist College Executive



Marist Brothers – United States – History



Marist College History



Marist College (Poughkeepsie, New York)



Marist College President
Marist College Social Aspects



Summary:
Brother Paul Ambrose and Jack Gartland discuss the history of Marist College and
the importance of its heritage so that we can save these thoughts and recollections for future
generations.







Dennis Murray (00:00:10):
Heritage. It's a very important part of any college or university in America, but
perhaps even more so at Marist college, because it is our heritage that we have
built upon. And we attribute much of the success that we have enjoyed in recent
years to that heritage that has been given to us by our founders. Today, we are
very fortunate to have with us, the two individuals who have help laid the
foundation for Marist College. Two individuals that have done more than any
others to contribute to the numerous successes that the college is enjoying
today. We're honored to have with us Brother Paul Ambrose, the founding
president of Marist college and Jack Gartland, a life trustee, a former chairman
of the board of trustees, and an individual who has contributed more in many
different ways than any individual to the successes that the college has enjoyed.
We hope to, through these interviews, capture their sense of the history and
heritage of Marist College so that we can save these thoughts and recollections
for future generations. Conducting the interview today with Brother Paul and
Jack will be Tony Cernera, our vice president for college advancement. Tony is
a graduate of Marist colleges, Marist schools, and knows well, the history that
we have enjoyed here at our institution. We hope you enjoy hearing and
watching this tape and learning a little bit about the history of Marist College,
from the perspective of individuals that have helped contribute to its success.
Anthony Cernera (00:02:33):
The celebration of the Marist centenary, celebrating a hundred years of Marist
Brothers service in the United States of America. Brother Paul Ambrose, one of
the leading Marist brothers in the United States, will tell us a little bit about
that convocation in a few minutes. But I would like to ask him to help us to
understand better what a Marist Brother is and what kind of work the Marist
brothers are doing around the United States and throughout the world, Brother
Paul?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:03:09):
Well, Tony we're an order of teaching brothers. Somebody said once to the
brothers, "well what is a brother?" And for one of a better answer, he said, well,
"he's a female nun", but that's not why we become brothers. Our founders
started the order of the Marist Brothers because of the number of kids in France
who are without education. The Lasal brothers, who are expert educators, started
a hundred years before we did, but they were taking the children of the city
schools, the big schools and the farming school, the village schools, there were
none. Our founder felt pity for these poor kids, abandoned kids, and he said, I
want brothers to imitate the Lasal brothers in the meat teaching methods, but to
maybe have lower tuition costs and operate a little bit more economically and
we'll be like a family, brothers will live together, and that's how it all started. It
started in France, in 1817 with two candidates. And now we are over 7,000
Marist Brothers in 846 schools, in 72 countries of the world. And one of his
fortes, one of his strong points was to go to the poor and as the Jesuit we're
dedicated to Jesus, to Christ, he wanted his brothers to be known as the


brothers, the little brothers of Mary, the Marist brothers. And as part of our
charism to spread devotion to our lady, because there's no one who served
Christ as well as Mary. So we try to imitate Mary and our service of Christ for
the poor. And because the poor are not just here around us. Another part of his
charism was to go forth in any, in every country of the world where we could
find poor children needing education. And his great saying was every diocese of
the world falls under our jurisdiction because there are needs everywhere. And
that is why we have spread so rapidly all over the globe.
Anthony Cernera (00:05:47):
Well, now you've been a Marist brother for almost 57 years. Is that right?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:05:50):
Correct. Yes.
Anthony Cernera (00:05:51):
Could you tell us how that first inspiration or calling came to you when you
were a young lad?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:05:57):
Well, it was an inspiration of course. I was very young. I had never seen a
brother in my life. I went to school to the sisters and I was in the seventh grade
and this gentleman come over, dressed up the way I am, to speak to us about the
need of brothers. And he was looking for brothers. Well, I was an alter boy and
I wanted to become a priest. It was all decided that I would become a priest, but
after listening to his talk, what the brothers were, what they did, the work for
the poor work, dedicate your life to youth, to spread devotion to our lady, which
had been inculcated in us and my family from birth, and to go to the missions
and not to be afraid to be sent as Christ sent the apostles to go out. And he told
us where the brothers worked. This, there was a certain sensation that came over
me. I said, this is it. I went to see him, I was ready to join at once. And he told
me, he said, no, you need permission from your parents. He said, I'll be here
tomorrow. Ask them tonight. I went home and my dad wouldn't hear of it.
"You're Too young. You don't know what you're doing." My mother said, "if this
is what you want to do, you always wanted to become a priest. What happened?"
I said, "well, I don't know, but this is it." She says, "well, if this is it, this is
what you want to do. I'm for it." So I asked my dad, are you against my going?
He said, "I won't be against it, but I'm not encouraging you." I went back and I
told the brother the next day that I'm ready to go at once, 13 years old in the
seventh grade, ready to go. He said, yeah, taken my statistics. And he said, I'll
let you know when there's room. There's no room now. He sent me a picture,
post card for my birthday, August 28th. And on the picture, in back of the
picture post card, it was marked, "Happy birthday, we have room, come." I went
the following Sunday, September 1st. My father wouldn't say goodbye to me. I
had to go to my aunts where he was. He didn't want to be around the house when


I left, I went to find him to kiss him goodbye. He didn't come. I left. We were
five new candidates that day, four of them left within the first couple of months.
And I'm still here.
Anthony Cernera (00:08:40):
You're still here, very good. Now, when you left home and you joined the
brothers, where did you go?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:08:45):
To Tyngsborough, Massachusetts.
Anthony Cernera (00:08:47):
And then did you have-
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:08:48):
Tyngsborough had just been built in 1924, the first year of its operation was
1925. I entered September 1st, 1926.
Anthony Cernera (00:09:01):
And did you ever study here in Poughkeepsie?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:09:03):
Oh, yes. I studied there for two years in Kingsborough and I came here in 1928
in Poughkeepsie to complete the high school. For the high school, we had
started the high school in Tyngsborough, completed it here. And because of a
shortage of brothers at the timea group of us were taken from the larger group
and sent home on vacation and we were sent on a mission a little bit early, a
year or two in advance. And I was in that group and I went to the novitiate in
1930 to become a brother. I received this religious habit and a June, July 26th,
1930...
Anthony Cernera (00:09:46):
Feast of St. Anne, right?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:09:47):
Feast of St. Anne. This used to be called St. Anne's Hermitage...
Anthony Cernera (00:09:50):
I remember that.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:09:51):
The old building. You remember that. St. Anne's Heritage... Our brothers first
came here in 1906. The brothers were connected with Canada. We started in the


United States in 1886 in Lewiston, Maine and then 1918, 90 and Manchester,
New Hampshire, in 1892 in Lawrence, Mass, New York city. We had two
schools in New York city- St. Anne's academy and St. Agnes, and it developed,
but we belonged to the Canadian United States province and we needed, we were
getting candidates sending them to Canada for training. So we decided to buy
this first in the state, I think it was. And we bought this big property, which
became a junior rate, a training for young candidates. I was here in 28, then we
had our own novitiate where the McCann center is now and went through the
novitiate training and where the Fontaine building and the chapel is, is where
the scholasticate was. And this is where we started the- we did our post
novitiate training, our first college training. We had a two year training college
called the Marist normal training school. And this normal training school was
affiliated with Fordham university and automatically all the brothers, when they
left this training school, they were assigned to teach in the various schools
whether it was new England or New York or wherever, and they had to finish
their degrees on their own. Those in New York could go to evening classes and
all of them took courses all summer long and all of them took courses- who were
in New York- took courses on Saturdays. I finished my degree by evening
classes and Saturday classes and summer work. And this is how all the brother
at the normal training school.
Anthony Cernera (00:12:15):
Now, Jack, around the time that brother Paul was getting involved with the
Marist brothers, you were a young boy here in Poughkeepsie. Did you have any
contact with the Marist brothers in your early days?
Jack Gartland (00:12:27):
Yes because I was born and raised in Poughkeepsie and I went through St.
Mary's grammar school and the first Catholic high school in the city of
Poughkeepsie was started by the Marist brothers down at St. Peter's church. And
they had the upper floor, I think it was, of the St Peter's boys grammar school.
And so my parents sent me there and that must have been in the fall of 1927. I
stayed there for two years and I switched to Poughkeepsie high school. So I
knew who the brothers were, I knew they were Marist brothers, I knew they had
an officiate up here and gosh, when you mentioned St. Anne's Hermitage-the
building that was out here in front where the Lowell Thomas, right where this
building is here now- and that was the novitiate, is that right Paul?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:13:17):
The juniorette and provincial house
Jack Gartland (00:13:19):
Later on when they when his house really became obsolete, I remember the
Marist brothers asking permission to tear it down and the fire department said,
"hey, we'd like to run the experiment up there." And they got all the fire


companies from locally around here to come up and they burned it down. And
they had all the fire companies all, you know, going one against the other. They
were running crazy because I happened to go here as a spectator at the time and
that's why I remember it so well. It was quite interesting because the fire
departments claimed they got a lot of training out of it for a lot of their
volunteer men and all. Were you here then Paul?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:14:03):
No, '28 I came here. I was out out of the place when the building was burnt. It
was Nialus who took care of it.
Jack Gartland (00:14:14):
But that was after he came I guess, yeah.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:14:17):
After Nialus came. But under St Peter's bit your St Peter's high school, the
brothers lived on campus here and they went to teach at St. Peter's and that little
building that still exists called St. Peter's, that was their residence.
Anthony Cernera (00:14:32):
Wow.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:14:32):
And there was a wooden addition to it that was where brother started the
printing in the cellar of that wooden addition. And he was a printer for the
college of 50 years, at least if not more. But that addition, wooden addition was
remove. And what is now office building in that little St Peter's was the original
residents of the brothers who were teaching at St. Peter's high school.
Anthony Cernera (00:14:56):
One of the things I discovered last summer when the brothers were here for the
convocation was that my freshman homeroom teacher, religion teacher, and
geometry teacher at Mount St. Michael brother, Joseph Damien had also been
Jack's teacher in 1927 geometry so we had a connection there that I wasn't
aware of.
Jack Gartland (00:15:15):
It was interesting. I think probably the fact that the Marist brothers had started
St. Peter's high school in the city of Poughkeepsie is what started the agitation
among a lot of local people to when Marist Marion college at first, you
remember, when it first got their charter, started local people agitating about
sending young men up here as commuter students. And that started, oh, that
went on for three, four years before brother Paul finally got involved in it.


Anthony Cernera (00:15:49):
We wanna get to that point, because that'll be a, an interesting part of our
history, but let's take a few steps back and tell us brother Paul, about the time
around 1943. I think that's when you came back to the college in some official
capacity.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:16:02):
Yes. But let, if you allow, let me go further back.
Anthony Cernera (00:16:07):
Okay.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:16:07):
That's something that will tear your hearts out. When our brothers wanted to buy
this property and also the Becca state and the Bishop property, we got this for a
very reasonable price. They were offered from north road all the way up to
violent avenue, for an extra $15,000. They could have had all the way up to
violet avenue. And they asked our superiors in France at the time, if it was okay
to buy this. And they said, well, you have a big property right on the Hudson?
Why do you need so much, that's going to deprive people of this. No, we didn't
get the permission, but looking back now, you wouldn't have Marist east or
west, you would have the whole world. You see. But at that time it was offered
to us.
Anthony Cernera (00:17:07):
Just not able to do it then.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:17:09):
Well, we were advised not to. That it would've been looked upon maybe by the
people as being gluttons, taking over everything. You remember that the Jesuit
had properties way back also.
Jack Gartland (00:17:20):
That's right, the Jesuits had around 900 acres up here and they went all the way
to violent avenue.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:17:26):
That's right. And we had the same offer.
Speaker 4 (00:17:28):
And all that property that brother Paul is talking about, later was purchased by
Fairview improvement company. And all the development of a Fairview is all
that old Beck property. They purchased a Fairview improvement company was
formed by the Canos and the Shaz family's here and they developed that starting


it around 1911 or sometime like that. At one time I was president of Fairview
improvement company. That's how I know about it.
Anthony Cernera (00:18:00):
Well, Paul, take us back to 1943 now.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:18:04):
I'll take you back to 1941. I left here and I taught in the grammar school in
Manchester and in Lowell. And I went to New York from '37 to '41 in high
school. And my career as a teacher ended in 1941. I got the degree from
Fordham summers. I got a degree from Villanova university in library science
summers. And I went to CU for two years to get my degree in from CU in
English literature. And I remember to this day that I got a phone call from the
provincial in Washington, DC, where I was the director of a community of four
brothers studying. Right. And we're living in the building of the former
ambassador through China, Mr. Johnson. And that is the house we had
purchased. And the provincial told me "when in the world, are you gonna finish
your degree?" This was in the beginning of August. I said, "I just got word this
morning that everything is finished. I'll get it the degree at the convocation or in
September or whatever it was. But that everything was finished, that I was
guaranteed, that everything had been accepted." He told me, take the next train
to Poughkeepsie. That was 1943. I said the next train to Poughkeepsie leaves at
12, this was nine o'clock in the morning. He says, "be on it."
Anthony Cernera (00:19:36):
Not a lot of time to pack, huh?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:19:37):
Well, that was the system in those days. So I came up to Poughkeepsie, come up
from New York, from Washington to New York and the New York train to
Poughkeepsie station, come over here to see the provincial. And I said, what
gives? He said it's good to see you here. Congratulations. You must be tired. Go
to bed. I'll see you in the morning. So in the morning after mass, he calls me in
and he said I want you to go to the scholasticate where the brothers, the young
brothers were going through these two years of normal training school and stay
there for a week with a brother who's there now. And at the end of the week,
you take over and there were close to a hundred young brothers, students going
through the first two years of college. And he said, but that's not all. He said,
we're putting all our men through the same routine. He says, I don't mind
everybody getting an education degree in education, but some want to be
specialists in other fields. He says, I'd like you to work at making this a four
year college and disassociated from Fordham university. So we won't all be
Fordham graduates. Now this was in the beginning of August. I was 29 years
old. I became 30 years old on the 28th of August. And this was dumped into my
lap then. I said, you don't know what you're asking me. Oh, he says, I think I do.


He says a lot of work. And I said, I'm gonna need a lot of help. He said, you'll
get the help. I said, you're gonna have to bring in teachers. We'll bring them.
It's going to take money. Well, we haven't got too much, but he says whatever
we have we'll dedicate to it and it will take time, but get it. And that was how I
was commissioned to work at making normal training school into a college.
There was no question that the name at the time...we weren't worried about a
name there. We said, well, what do we do next? And I believe that what helped
me tremendously, and I wish to give credit where it's due. I had been pretty
much taken up at CU with the setup at CU and registrar and the man in charge,
there was Dr. Roy J. Day Ferrari. And I became very friendly with him while at
CU at the superior of the Marist brothers at that time. So I hightail it back by
train to see you to see an appointment with Dr. Day Ferrari. And I said, here's
what the mandate that I have. This is good brother I said, I'm gonna need some
help. I said, we are affiliated for them. Is there a possibility of our first being
affiliated, also being affiliated with Catholic university? I thought that was an
initial step that we should go through. So I got him to come over here to see
what was doing and to help me with the plan for the extra year. The provincial
had told me, we'll leave the men here three years and three summers and they
should be able to do four years work at that time. That was the frame schedule
that he had given us. Dr. Day Ferrari agreed that it could be possible. We
planned the courses and we were first affiliated with Catholic university. And
then he says, you should make your move to the University of the state of New
York. I said, okay, I'll go to Albany. But I said I need your help. Who do I
contact in Albany? Oh, he said, there's a friend of mine there working on the
charter graduate schools and so on. He says, go see Dr. Jay Hillis Miller. So my
next trip was in Albany and saw Dr. Miller explain the situation, mentioned Dr.
Day Ferrari and that gave me an in immediately. We got Dr. Miller interested in
what we're doing and I explained to him that there is no college facilities
between Catholic, between Fordham universities, and Loudonville Sienna
college. And I said, this would be a Catholic college for the brothers.
Eventually, it was the intention, eventually to open it to outsiders. Well, he got
very interested in this work. He came down to make two or three visits and
inspections and all kind of suggestions. But one time when he came, I surprised
him and I surprised Dr. Day Ferrari, I invited Dr. Day Ferrari to come for a
visit, I invited Dr.- But I didn't tell him that they were gonna meet. They hadn't
met in a long time, they met, they got very much interested and I believe that
they adopted the idea of the brothers having their own college and CU was back
in the south. We had our affiliation with CU and Dr. Jay Hillis Miller went to
bat with us with the powers. This, these transactions went on from 1943 to 1946.
Anthony Cernera (00:25:16):
And then in 1946, what happened?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:25:19):
In 1946, the board of trustees of the university of the state of New York
approved Marist College and sent us what they call a temporary charter, a


temporary charter. And that kind of gave me a blow, a temporary charter? I
says, we want the real thing. He said, well, everybody goes through the same
system. You have the charter. It was dated September 20th, 1946. I remember
the date because I sent a telegram- we had a convocation in Rome at that time of
brothers from all over the world, 167 brothers from all over the world. And they
were studying, you know, the growth of the order and so on. I sent a telegram to
the new general, Marist College has its approval as a college, normal training
school, as a college. And they, they all celebrated and they all cheered. And the
news went out worldwide from our center in France to the people. But I get back
to Dr. Miller and I said, hey, why the temporary- he said, this is normal. He
said, you have five years in which to qualify for a permanent charter. And in the
recommendations which they had about additional staff, lay staff, bringing in
outsiders and so on... board of trustees, everything was there. We started at once
to implement, and we got the permanent charter. Now, there is a point that I
contest here. I may be wrong and I think somebody should look in on it. We
received the information that the board of trustees or the University of State of
New York had approved Marist College permanent charter on December 15th,
1950. In other words, we didn't need the five years, they approved us then. And
several times now I've seen that the date is December 19th. It could very well be
that the secretarial work of the university of the state of New York sent us a
document on the 19th, but we were approved. I would like that to be traced. On
December 15th is when we got the notification after that, after their session of
that meeting, Dr. Miller called me to tell me at once that's how close we were.
So that is a little point to be clarified. I believe.
Anthony Cernera (00:28:03):
Was it incorporated by the Board of Regents as Marion college or Marist
College?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:28:08):
As Marion college. We had decided we had, we had bantered back and forth.
There were Marist fathers out of college in Washington DC. There was a couple
of Marist College. There was also a Marion college out in west forger and the
brothers were asked to vote and they voted on Marion College because they
really went through St. Anne's Hermitage and where Marist brothers, St. Anne's
was the day when we renewed our vows on July 26th, every brother for years.
So Mary and Anne was Marion College. So it was a blend of the two names. And
this is how we were approved originally. It was after I left that Paul Stokes, to
his memory I say it, and a hard worker dedicated the college that he, they
pushed to change the Marist College. At the time, they changed the college
colors, they were blue and gold to red and white, and they changed the mascot
to the Fox, the Red Fox. See that was all changed at that time. And the request
for the name change was approved very easily.
Anthony Cernera (00:29:29):


Paul, on May 23rd, 11 days from now, the college will hold its 41st
commencement and over 700 men and women will walk across the the stage and
receive their degree from the president of the college. Tell us about the first
commencement.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:29:47):
You won't believe it. We graduated brothers. They were all brothers of course, it
was only later we had agreed the first class of lay people consisted of 10, then
26 and just grew. But the brothers, the first graduating class naturally had to be
after the date of the charter. Even though the charter was only a temporary
charter, we were authorized to grant degrees to have the college course. The
charter, I saw some place that we got the college approved in order to take lay
people. Well, that would be wrong. We just asked to get the college approved as
a college for brothers. Eventually we were to take people, but we, the charter
authorized us at once to grant degrees to the brothers. We already had the
permission to extend it to grow. The first graduating class was a class of four
brothers and it was held during the summer. They had finished their courses
during the summer. We had no parchment, we had no diplomas. We were having
the diplomas engraved, and we had just received the approval. We had the
diplomas, a quantity engrave. They were not ready yet. We had a ceremony out,
next to Greystone, where there are a lot of trees. There's that little Japanese
maple tree that we stole from our property in these sopas to plant there. I
planted it when it was about one foot high, and it's our beautiful, we used to
have a stone table and benches that brother Nilus made. We used to have our
Sunday evening suppers out there, or we had the graduation class out there. We
had the graduation there and we cheered these four brothers who had completed
their work. And we had a supper in their, we had a supper in their honor. They
were assigned that same night. They were told where they would go out teaching
and they would be sent their diplomas in the various communities where they
were and they were promised to have another celebration locally with the
brothers where they went. But I felt very badly that we couldn't do anything
more for them, but I had arranged that right after the supper, this was about five
or six, five o'clock. I put the four of them in the station wagon that we had with
me. And I drove them to Torrington in Connecticut. And we went there for a
nice ride and they were having a lot of fun talking about their assignments and
it was okay for them to be alone with me. And we went out for banana splits and
we had a drink and we came back and that was it. That was the first graduating
class and these four brothers, and for the record, I mentioned their name Brother
Bernard Frederick Toey. See the alphabetical order went by your brother's name
in those days. Brother Christopher Emerol Connelly, Brother John Benedict
Normande. These three left the brotherhood after Brother Patrick Eugene
McGee. Pat McGee was the hose diploma number four and the celebration of our
centenary of work in America, the college very graciously awarded Brother
Patrick McGee, an honorary doctor.
Anthony Cernera (00:33:48):


Yes, I remember that.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:33:49):
He has been an exceptional person, educated, dedicated to all the schools and
the hard work and he's been the counselor, he's been the secretary of the
provincial councils for years.
Anthony Cernera (00:34:02):
And was a director of Mount St. Michael when I was a student there so Brother
Patrick and I go back a long way together. I wanna move up in history a little
bit. The permanent charter happened in 1950. And you had in the back of your
mind even years before that, the idea of eventually bringing lay students to the
college. I think the gentleman to your left played a key role in helping the
college to get ready to deal with the question of bringing lay students in. Jack.
tell us about your first involvement with Marist College.
Jack Gartland (00:34:35):
Well, I can remember reading in the papers that local parents were agitating the
Brothers up there to take some lay students in and Brother Paul here gave a
couple press releases saying that eventually they probably would. The Brother
Paul and I were the only two men on the board of trustees of the St. Frans
hospital school of nursing, and are either four or five women on that board. And
I can remember, I think it was in the spring of '56, although I'm not sure if it
was spring or fall, but we were at a meeting up here at the hospital and these
women were talking like mad for a long, long time once things had nothing to
do with the school nursing, you know? And so I turned to Paul because we were
sitting next to each other and I said, you know, these women are cutting into my
cocktail hour. I said, I think we better get out of here. So he says, I'll go with
you. So we excuse ourselves. And, and he said to me, come on over to my
quarters. He lived in Adrian at that time. Do you remember? He's gone over
there. He said, I'll buy you a drink. I said, good. So I'm over with him and we
had a scotch and water or something like that. And during the course of our
conversation, he talked about bringing lay students in and he said that there
were no late trustees on the on the board of trustees at that time, they were all
brothers. And he said, I'd like to have some lay participation, give me some
advice on how to handle lay students. I wonder if you would help me get
together a group of men that would help me out. Remember that Paul? So we got
fellas like I remember Jack Muvley was a lawyer here in town and Dick Small
across the street was president of Western printing and we got George well from
Millbrook and Nate rifle who was a local businessman. He was head of an
electric supply company and a great friend of Nilus' at the time. And we got
Kim Dwyer who was a banker up in Kingston. I know maybe I missed some, but
we got them together and had a meeting. And I can remember Paul sat next to
me, I sat next to him, and he turned to me and he said, Jack, well, you should
have a chairman. And I said, yes. And I turned to Nate Reifer and I said, you
make a good chairman. He said, oh no, no, I don't wanna do that. And we're all


around a room and finally it came back to me. So Paul says, you're it. So I was
chairman of his lay advisory board. I think we called it or something like that.
And we start making plans for the admission of some lay students. And it was
quite interesting. Paul Stokes at that time was here. And I think he was made
Dean of discipline or something.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:37:33):
Dean of discipline. That's right.
Jack Gartland (00:37:34):
And he was scared of death of lay students. He's like I can handle the brothers,
but I don't know what I can do about these lay students because they were gonna
come in cars, you know, and everything like that. And he didn't know there were
not any parking lots up here and he didn't know quite how he was going to
handle it but gee I miss Paul, you know but the Nilus was very active at that
time. Nilus Donnelley. That's who the Donnelley hall's named after. Well Nilus
went around town and he picked up anything he possibly could. Bulldozers,
cranes, anything that he could use and building. And previous to that, while they
were putting buildings up here, the brothers themselves did a lot of the physical
work. And during the summertime, the brothers from all over, probably the
novices anyway. Roy asked to come here and pitch in, on building. And I always
remember knowing that the help was not expert contract expert builders and all.
If a wall would call for say 12 inches or 18 inches, he made it 36 inches wide.
In the Fontaine building as an example where the library is now, that used to be
the residence for the brothers. The dining room was there and everything and
when later on it was to be converted into the library, the contractor had the job,
he had to dig, put new doors in, new windows and he had to dig through some of
these walls. And one day he said to me, I don't understand how the heck these
things were built. He says, here's a nonbearing wall and it's three feet thick. Of
course, concrete was cheap in those days, you know? And they used a lot of
concrete in those buildings. So one time he asked Nilus about it and he said,
well, we always wanted to make sure that it would be substantial and the
building would stand there for a while because he said, none of these brothers
were experts at Masons or carpenters and like that. But they certainly did a lot
of work around here. And in any event, finally, that was in 1956. And I've
forgotten whether '56 or '57 that the first lay students came and I do remember
that Paul had the idea of only admitting 20 at a time. And I think the first time
he had like a hundred applications for 20 positions in the college and it kept
growing like that and it just never stopped. And our lay advisory board was in
existence and we met, oh gosh at Paul call, but we met practically every month
for maybe 10 years or something like that. I do remember one interesting thing.
Shortly after that, one day, Paul called me up and he said, can you come up for
lunch? And I said, sure. He said, I want you to meet a young brother. He said,
he's just completing his work for a PhD in mathematics, out at New York
University. And he said, I'd like to have you meet him. His name is brother
Linus Richard and I come up to meet him and just before that Paul said to me,


he said, he's a nice young man and you're gonna like him. And we just selected
him to be the new president of the college because I'm gonna leave here and I'm
gonna go to Rome. He said, I'm gonna be one of the generals of the order in
Rome. But he said, don't tell anybody, because it isn't public yet. Besides that,
don't congratulate Linus Richard because he said he doesn't know anything
about it yet, I haven't even talked to him about it yet. So I sat there during the
whole lunch and I kept looking at this young man and I kept saying, gee, he
looks pretty good. I couldn't dare. I didn't say a word. You know, I didn't dare
say a word because I'm afraid that I'd say, gee, congratulations, you know, or
something and never had that before. That's right.
Anthony Cernera (00:41:57):
Well maybe you could recount a little bit for us. What happened? How did you
get called to Rome and did that come as a surprise when that happened?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:42:04):
Completely by surprise, completely. But you see, I'd like to pay tribute before I
go into this now. Glad to do so gladly. When the board of trustees, when the
board of regents gave us some advice and suggestions and parameters to follow,
it was the, to bring in the board of trustees, which were Jack, we did, it was to
put up more buildings. It was to bring in lay teachers, bring in lay teachers. And
at that time we eeded help. I needed professional help. So we hired Dr.
Schroeder and then we got people to come like George Summers, who's still
here, he came to teach part-time from Manhattan, with Joe Morrano came also at
that time. And we had a number who we got some of our brothers with their
doctorate. As soon as a Brother got a doctorate, he'd be brought up here. And I
have to say that when there's a question of getting brothers up here, number
from any community or any school, when the college in this infancy asked for
these people, I was never refused. Any money that I asked, we got it. There was
never any question of what we're going to do, how we're going to do it. They
had complete confidence in Nilus' work and Nilus and I worked together. And
you know, I sit here, and as the, as the first president, which I was, but the
credit is not mine. The credit is teamwork. Family work. As a matter of fact, if
you look carefully at the archives, you're gonna find out that my name is not
down as president. And in the first years when we first got this charter, I was
the master of scholastics. That was my title then. I organized the college and so
on. But the provincial and his five counselors were the board of trustees. So for
then under place on default for the name of the president of the college, we put
the provincials name. And board of trustees, the others. And the provincial
change every three years. Well, there was a new name there, a new name there. I
kept sending these reports in, but they never even came here. They were never
here. They, they had nothing to do with it, you know? I see. So it might lead to
confusion, you know, to say, well, we have a lot of names of the first presidents
and they might mention brother Linus William that he's still living. But I mean,
he was provincial, but he endorsed everything I did. And brother Lewis Omer
the same thing, and brother Kirin, Thomas came after it. But I really was the


first president and I mean in de facto but not on the list, not on the program.
And nobody cared who was president or who did what. Everybody pitched in
together, you know? And I had tremendous endorsement to help from every
body.
Anthony Cernera (00:45:21):
In that regard, I do remember one time you asked me to come up here because
all the trustees, they were all in New York City and they were gonna come and
look at Marist and the whole group came here and you took him to lunch down
to Nelson house, the old Nelson house down there. But there was one little short
brother who was only like, I bet he wasn't even five feet tall. Was he the
treasurer or something at that time?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:45:46):
Yes. Brother Mary Andrew. It was brother Mary Andrew.
Anthony Cernera (00:45:49):
All he wanted to talk about were the finances.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:45:50):
He was in charge of the finances.
Anthony Cernera (00:45:54):
He was scared. He was scared of the college. He really was, that it was gonna
flop. Yeah. And I remember we all we went to lunch down in Nelson house.
That was all he talked about was what would happen if this, you know.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:46:07):
But he did his homework. He got the plans and what we wanted. He went to see
manufacturers' trust with his buddies there and then Meryl Lynch and he
checked everything out thoroughly. And then he gave me the go ahead sign. I
never was refused anything, you know? And you know, you could, you could
start out a fantastic thing like this and be blocked right and left. And with Nilus
for example, he was so busy that I'd see him rarely. But when I needed to see
Nilus, I'd put an note at his door, if he needed something for me, put a note on
my door and there was understood. At once we would go out to dinner, we'd go
up to Hyde park, and we'd have dinner, we'd talk over all the problems, all the
plans forthcoming and that's how we operate.
Anthony Cernera (00:46:56):
Now what was Nilus' role or position?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:46:58):


Nilus came here as a teacher of physics, but he had just put on this massive
gymnasium in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the brothers put up the gymnasium in
Lawrence, Massachusetts on their own. Now this is 160 feet, 163 feet square.
And it's a three story building, the gymnasium and classes all the way around on
the second floor. It is the largest hall in the whole city of Lawrence and which
is used for big political rallies, for doctors conventions. And to this day, and
this is built, as Jack said, cement three feet thick, solid. Nilus had just finished
there. So we got him over here, because I knew the university asked for new
buildings and with Nilus there, he was teaching here in the beginning and
planning the buildings and working. And after one year I said, well, this is
ridiculous. We got somebody else to take his teaching and he concentrated on
the construction.
Dennis Murray (00:48:05):
So he became director of construction for the college?
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:48:08):
Yes.
Anthony Cernera (00:48:09):
And tell us something. Jack alluded to this fact of a lot of the younger brothers
helping in the building project. Is that what happened? Summers, the brothers
came back and...
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:48:18):
A project cannot go on just during the summers, you see. So Nilus would plan
the project and I told you, I had, I always had at least a hundred brothers. One
year I had 146. I never had less than a hundred. During the 15 years that I was
master of scholastics and president of the college. Well Nilus needed a group of
15 or 20. So I got them in together, other brothers. And I said, now we need
help to work physical hard work. You're all going to be assigned a week, no or
10 days, or whatever it was. During that time classes are going on. You are
missing classes. Make sure that your buddies take the notes for you. You will be
held responsible for everything that's going on in the classes. You won't be
there, but you'll be held responsible. The term papers and everything. Well, I
said together, we will get these buildings put up, but we, we will manage. The
brothers accepted that. They, I could have had a riot. They accepted that. Nilus
would take his 10 men and they worked for him. From eight in the morning until
five at night and we've came in and wash and shave, clean up, and shower, and
then we'd have our prayers and dinner and so on. And then they'd about what
they did and the brothers, they'd be filling in. They'd stay up late to get some of
their studies in, but the next 10 days would be another group. So Nilus had
people going continuously. So each brother had two or three times during the
year when he had to lose a week, 10 days of his studies, and continue. During
the holiday period, Easter holidays and Christmas holidays, everybody would


pitch in. During the summer holidays, we'd get some of our brothers from the
various schools and we'd bring in 50 to 60, sometimes 75 brothers in the old
Bishop with little brother, Eddie Mike as their director, Brother Peter Giniti,
God rest his soul, he just passed away. He was the cook for every summer for
these men. Where did Brother Scotty fit in on that? Brother Scotty, he was, he
came in from Scotland and he was teaching in the school. He'd come in to work
and he helped Nilus with the equipment. And Brother Gus Landry, he would like
clerk of the works when Nilus couldn't be there, Gus knew what the project had
to be done and the brothers worked at. And they loved to come for the summer.
It was a way from teaching. The brothers who were not finished with their
degrees would continue their Summer work. But since the brothers were
graduating from here and those who graduated from here went on to get graduate
work, but they were happy to come back here. See when you put up a house and
it's your own, you're gonna take care of it. If you're living in a rented house,
well, somebody else's headache. But the brothers come to this campus and that's
why we have to be very sensitive to tradition and I appreciate what goes on
here, this concern. Dennis' opening word heritage. And they're not many
colleges that are this concerned about heritage, but we have to be sensitive to
this. The brothers started this and they put their blood, sweat, and tears and it's
the hard work. And they loved it and they loved, they love to come back. You
know, and psychologically, when we could not continue, we couldn't afford to
continue because we didn't have the contacts with the foundation. We needed to
pass this on to the lay board of trustees. And it was passed on at very reasonable
terms to the board of trustees and no longer the brothers ownership. This
grasped the brothers to the core. Many did not understand. Why are we giving
up? Because they had worked so hard. And we were in a very difficult position,
the superiors, where you try to explain to them that we're not giving up. Our
work is continuing, it's carried on because we cannot physically do. See, we
don't have anymore a hundred brothers coming in for studies and so on. It's a
new year and we have to adapt. They realize it. And last summer when these 350
brothers came here to spend us four day convention here, and they brought them
all together, it brought them back to roots. This, this did more to smooth, that
difficult feeling than anything else because they saw what the college is all
about, where it's moving, the direction it's moving. They were so well treated.
They were so proud of everything because there were a few things that happened
that had to happen that were a bit sad. For example, where we had 48, 47
brothers and one priest buried in that little cemetery. And one day we opened a
new cemetery in Esopus. But these were the founding brothers. And even some
of the men who are in a college teaching today who were here as brothers. They
know that the last brother to be buried in that cemetery is brother George
Francis, head of the history department who got his degree at Fordham and
traveled back and forth to continue. And he was a fantastic, his name was
George Burns from Highland, the last brother, the first brother to be buried from
our lady theater with chapel in 1953. The chapel was dedicated for December
8th, 1953 to start the Marion year. It was in October, their brother, but here was
a man who had driven his life here to this place. And the brothers remembered


him very recent besides all the old founders. And the cemetery was, the
tombstones were just closed in, and the wall, which was a four foot, four and a
half foot wall, was filled in with sand and all around the whole thing was
bulldozed and where that Memorial stone is, is about the site, but it was a much
bigger site naturally. Well, the brothers felt that that should not have been done.
You know, it wasn't done. And it was done in a hurry and it was, there was a
lack of communication. It was only after that, they found out things. So there
was a lot of hurt in all this, but time and the relation with the chap, with the
college now, as it healed a lot of wounds.
Anthony Cernera (00:55:25):
Certainly this summer, there was a real sense during that convocation of
reaffirmation of our heritage in roots and of the brothers vital role of the
college.
Brother Paul Ambrose (00:55:35):
I cannot command a college and Dennis, particularly enough because he went all
out and it was tremendous. The brothers then, and there was a tremendous surge
all over the province, not just all, when they went back, it changed the
complexity of everything, the relationship. And I have always stood by this
college. I cannot deny that it has been the work of God from the beginning, you
know, using people, using instruments, but there were many miracles performed,
you know?
Anthony Cernera (00:56:12):
Jack I'd like to go back to that for a moment. In 1956, there were no paychecks
attached to being on the lay advisory board. And through the last 31 years there
hasn't been any paychecks for you. Why have you stayed as actively involved in
Marist college? What was it that in that early conversation with brother Paul,
that interested you in the project of this college, but has kept you involved for
over 30 years?
Jack Gartland (00:56:38):
When I first met Paul, I had tremendous admiration for him, not just as an
individual, also what he was accomplishing, and he was doing it in such a nice
and smooth way, and he was helping the community here because his concept
when it was opened up to lay students and everything was really gonna help the
whole community here in Poughkeepsie. And of course I was always very
community minded and so was my father ahead of me. We were born and raised
in Poughkeepsie. So with my father and like that, we appreciated what he was
trying to do just for the community here. And I think that's one of the main
reasons why I have kept my interest in Marist College is that everything they've
done up here. Going back to that period, you know, from '56 on, we'll say for a
period of almost 10 years, the transition of changing this from a almost like a
religious affiliated college, to like a non-sectarian college was very hard on the


brothers. And just as Paul was mentioning, a lot of the brothers didn't like that.
In fact, I often was suspicious that at one time we had inquiries after that from
the curator in the Vatican and why the Marist Brothers gave up their college in
America almost as if it was a mortal sin. And I collected a lot of the data
together as the attorney for the college and I sent it to Paul and Paul took it to
your mother house. I presume to the curator explaining what went on here in
America and why the transition went from a religious college, just teaching
brothers into a full fledged lay college in which the brothers could still go to,
but I mean, it was primarily a lay college. And I think one of the impetus that
helped that along was the Bundy money that came in the state of New York
which was a, back in the mid sixties where money was granted to private
colleges, for giving a degree, got X number of dollars for each degree that was
conferred on a graduate and X number of dollars for graduate degree and like
that. So that in the mid sixties, the brothers themselves decided that the best
thing to do was to really change it over into a, with a labor board of trustees,
into a non-sectarian college. At that point I think Harold Spencer was the first
lay trustee that was put on the board and brother Linus Richard later took the
Linus Richard Foy, which was his family name, was the president at that time.
And gradually they added more and more lay people and it became a
predominantly lay board, although it was always the intention and has always
been, and it is true, we always have several brothers on that board. There's
always four or five or something like that. And the fact that we made a policy
statement, just set the time of the transition between Linus Foy and Dennis
Murray on the structure of the board so there would always be four or five
representatives from the Marist brothers on our board of trustees. In fact after
that transition occurred the Board of Regents, no, I think rather than that, but at
the time that the first thought was building dormitories here in the college,
many of the students, lay students, that came here, came from various Marist
high schools in Long Island and New York city and New Jersey and they had no
place to live. So the college had to start finding places to live and they run it in
a number of rooms in the Nelson house, in a number of rooms in all Kings court,
on Ken street in Poughkeepsie. And I can't but laugh, I remember Paul Stoke's
still Dean of discipline and he used to come down to make a bed check at night.
And he had some surprises, you know, and gosh, he used to get all excited about
it. Students will be missing from the rooms and things like that. And he was an
all time disciplinarian. And he'd call me up as I was turning on and he'd say,
"hey, what should I do?" He says, "so and so wasn't in his room and I, don't
where he is. His parents will be after me." And so I said, wait a while and check
it in the morning and see if he comes in, of course the morning he'd be back. So
they thought the only way they could have real control of these students was to
build a dormitory. At that time, United States government set up a dormitory
authority and money could be borrowed at 3%. So we started with Sheahan, was
the first one, then Leo became the second one. Nilus Donelley was given charge
of hiring the architect and arranging everything on Sheahan. He hired an
architect from Middletown to get his ideas and he didn't like him. So he fired
him. And later on he started a lawsuit against the college, which we defended


and succeeded because he really hadn't done any work on it. And then he hired
another architect whose name I won't mention. And Nilus had a conflict with
him. He didn't like what he was doing. But he had to go through with it because
he'd been certified to the United States, dormitory authority and they had
approved him. So in fact that man is not an architect anymore. He left the
business and went into something else. But we finally got Sheahan up, there
were all sorts of modifications that Nilus put into it, which he thought was for
the better, which I think it was myself. It was probably at that time I got
interested in the building the grounds of the cops, really, because Nilus used to
call me all the time and I'd go over and help me to say, if I change this now will
they renew on the money coming in. I had to call somebody in Washington and
say, "hey, we wanna put a change in it." And the man that we kept calling had
an Irish name, I've forgotten it in Washington. And finally he said to me, "hey,
go on and get the building finished. We don't care about what you do with it."
And so we finally, got Sheahan finished. That was the first dormitory. I've
forgotten how many it holds over there, but if it was holding a hundred, we had
300 who wanted rooms on campus. So immediately we went to work on Leo.
That dormitory was designed by Paul Kanen. In fact, Paul Kanen the architect,
who was a college architect for a long time. And I understand now Paul's living
over in Spain. I don't know whether he's in semi-retirement or what, but in any
event, Paul Kanen got an award from the architectural society for the design of
Leo dormitory hall. Because there's a lot of Nilus in that too. because Paul
Kanen was that type of an architect that if you had ideas and they were good,
he'd change his plans for it. Paul was very receptible to any change of plans that
might come along and Nilus had always had suggestions and ideas to change
things. So that was put up as a second dormitory. Well, at that time, we had to
convey property from the Marist brothers who owned the whole campus here to
the Marist college, which was an educational corporation by charter from the
Board of Regents to State of New York. So as attorney, I was given a job of
preparing necessary deeds for the brothers to convey it to the college. And we
had to have, at that time, if my memory was correct, show to the dormitory
authority that they had the ability to pay this loan because it was theoretically
supposed to be self-sustaining, but then there had to be reserves set up and I
think today the college maintains a trust fund down in the Dutchess bank which
is for repairs and restoration and improvements and like that to the dormitories,
which are under loan from the United States dormitory authority. After that, it
was still a demand for more as the college kept growing because all of a sudden
we were growing at a very rapid rate and by mid 1960s, only like 10 years in
existence, we had gone to like 1600 students or something like that. And of
which eight or 900 wanted to be on campus. And they had facilities for like for
250 or 300. A little sideline in relation to that, the old legal descriptions of this
land was always in the old days, any farm was described like west by the
Hudson river, north by Smith east by route nine or Albany post road it was a
always used to be called in south by waterworks route or something like that.
Well, waterworks road was put in by the city, like in 1870 to the old filtering
beds and the intake from the Hudson river they had for the water system for the


whole city of Poughkeepsie. Well, the deeds had committed all people and
stayed there for several generations, like in McPherson farm and later the Beck
farm, he never mentioned anything about waterworks road so there was no way
of knowing exactly what the descriptions were, whether they were good or the
bad and the college really couldn't afford. And the brothers couldn't afford to
have a survey made because that was a lot of money to make a survey in those
days. So what we did, we had one of the brother historians who was, I think it
was brother Adrian. Well, I'm not, I don't remember really, that gave me the old
deed to draw for the Southern side of the campus. We had to certify the college
owned it, and I had to certify it personally to the United States dormitory
authority and which we did. So I just used the description he gave me and we
did it that way. Later on the New York state dormitory authority was contacted
and they have a different legal procedure. They actually own the land upon
which any building is built. So if they want to put up Champagnat Hall, the the
next dormitory was gonna house around, I don't know, three, four hundred. So
we certified that to a title company that, that land was owned by the college and
we gave that section of it to the New York state dormitory authority. A very
interesting thing is that a history student here at the college, a history major,
decided for his senior thesis to write the history of the college, the physical
history of the college and everything. So after he did that, he came down to see
me one day and he said, you know Mr. Gartland, he said, I'm a little puzzled by
the description that was used in conveying the main campus from the Marist
brothers to the Marist college. And he said, I went way, way back into the 18th
century. And he says, I think the description that property is what's north of
Water works road, not what is south of it. So with that, I dug the whole thing
out and I researched it myself personally and found out it was true. But just at
that, the brothers at that time had built Greg Lee and Bernard, and they owned
that, the soupus province owned that on the north side of water works road.
They wanted to convey that to the college because the college had guaranteed
the mortgage that they put on there. So I said, fine. So I cut out the other
description that they had been deeded to the Marist brothers, like in 19 four or
sometime like that, which actually, the one I used then was, I let the other one
go. That was north of it. And I used the one that was south of water works road.
So that corrected the mistake I had made about eight or nine years earlier. So
that history student was correct in discovering the mistake. So we had to correct
it and then that okayed everything that we had certified to the United States
dormitory authority and to the New York state dormitory authority.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:10:34):
Had it not been for the lay board, the brothers could not have had funds from
these different government authorities because of the separation of church and
state and so on. But when the brothers signed over to the board of trustees, the
reason for the little flack or the little trouble that they had was any religious
order like ours is considered working for the church, that we belong to the
church, and anything we have belongs to the Catholic church. And a brother, in


signing this over, was accused of alienation of church property without
permission. So this was... We had failed to clear in Rome before, you know...
Anthony Cernera (01:11:29):
Well, I'm very familiar with alienation of church property, you know, and we've
bought Eden terrace. We had to wait to get an approval from Rome to buy the
house from the Marist brothers side.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:11:37):
This is what it is. There was no problem with the college, except that they had
done it without clearing it first and that's where the flag was.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:11:45):
Jack. You've been involved in every major building project on this campus now
for more than a generation. What concepts have motivated you, what ideas have
you had behind that driving impetus to build new buildings, develop renovate
beautify the campus?
Jack Gartland (01:12:05):
Well, I think going back, the dormitory authorities were, I mean, the dormitories
that were built rather, were forced on us by the students wanting a place to live.
So that was easy enough to do. When McCann foundation was started in 1969,
and we started to do projects for that, like building the golf course in the city,
and rebuilding St. Mary's church, putting McKeean ice arena in with the civic
center, downtown Poughkeepsie. One of the next concepts that we had, or for a
project to do, was an indoor swimming pool that would be available to the
community. Well Linus Foy and I sat down many times and discussed the future
of Marist college.
Jack Gartland (01:13:07):
And one of the ideas that we had was that, and of course we had lady students at
that time, or girl students, but I I wanna go back on that because that was an
interesting concept we had or time that we had at debating that one over. But
one of the concepts that Linus and I came up with was that in order to attract
students, we had to have good recreational facilities here. Leonidoff field as an
example, was built. That concept, we purchased the land from New York state,
our New York central railroad, and then filled it in by waste material that New
York state had when they built the north/south arterial in the city of
Poughkeepsie. In that whole practice field south of there was all filled in and
built on that seven acres that we purchased from New York central railroad and
the field we got and then covered up, we put drains in there, we did everything
possible in order to try and make that facility available with softball diamonds
in the practice field and different things like that. That wasn't enough, we had to
have indoor facilities and the old gym, which is now Marion hall, was really not
sufficient to take care of the increase in students that were coming in here. So


the idea was there ought be a field house. That was Linus' idea. And my idea
was that we needed a swimming pool, so, and available for the community. So
we combined the two together, and McCann then agreed to finance a lot of it,
some was financed by the college who a mortgage, which had been paid off in
the meantime, to make that available for the students in a multipurpose type of
building, an auditorium that would be used for basketball and track and
convocations and meetings, graduations, and like that. Along with the swimming
pool that we made available so there could be changeover to metric system
which is 25 yards and 25 meters. So we have a moveable bulkhead to go back
and forth. And at that time we built it, which is just 10 years ago, it opened up
in I think it was April, 1976. Everybody here in America was gun-ho about the
metric system. It seems a form by wayside too many times, but that's why we
have a moveable bulkhead and that was conceived by Linus and myself when we
were sitting down and trying to decide on this. And we thought that was easiest
way to do it, we contacted Paddock pool company and they researched it out and
they came up with this idea of a movable bulkhead and it could be moved back
and forth. And oddly enough, after that, I think Fordham university copied that
and several other colleges and eastbuilt pools copied that. In any event, I think
it's proven true that in having that recreational facility, indoor facility, and the
usage that it gets, what I haven't heard recently, but I remember four or five
years ago, they said there was more than a half a million people, or, you know,
using our time. A lot of repeats nationalizing, but the students use it to at least a
half a million per year. In any event, we thought that would be the hub of
helping to increase enrollment. And I think it has because the enrollment has
certainly increased every single year and I think one of the sales things is that...
the other idea also to help enrollment, the concept of students going to college
today is different from when I went, when everybody was in a dormitory,
because I went to a Jesuit college and they had a prefect there and you had to be
in at a certain hour and in bed at a certain time and things like that, but the
dormitory life has changed and students like something a little bit different.
That was one concept we had, but also, in the event if enrollment ever went
down, we thought places like townhouses, as an example, would then become
available that the college could lease out to faculty or to the public or some
other way. And, but it's proven to be very attractive for students to live that
way. They seem to enjoy living in townhouse style, rather the old dormitory
style and the same concept we had in relation to the apartments and the north
end of the campus. That idea was the same, except we made it into apartments
rather than townhouses but those type of apartments up there could be converted
to townhouses if needed. But again, was the same idea. Also, the athletic fields
that are built on the west of the apartments towards the river, that was very
rough land down there. In fact, the McCann foundation had spent over a million
dollars in purchasing that and fixing it up and getting it ready, and the concept
there was to help the female students have an outdoor recreational facility,
which they didn't have because the male students were dominating Leonidoff
Field and the practice field down there and it was very little spot for the female


students so the concept was we'll have it available there and they can spread it
out so that the female students can have.
Anthony Cernera (01:19:11):
You certainly were a driving force in those trustee discussions about the need
for athletic facilities, for women on the campus. From what I understand, you
were deeply immersed in those discussions about women coming to Marist
college. So maybe you could take us back to the late 1960s when that issue was
being debated, whether this all male college should allow women students to
come.
Jack Gartland (01:19:33):
Certainly the original concept Paul had was an all male college.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:19:36):
That's right.
Jack Gartland (01:19:36):
And all the, we had commuter students. And originally I think it was all to be,
only to be commuter students. And then with all the students that wanted to
come here and live on campus, we had to go into dormitories and the brothers,
while they were in charge of it, never had any idea of having any female
students here. But when our, when the change in transition came to transfer the
college over with a lay board of trustees or predominantly a lay board, Dr. John
Schroeder, who was in charge of the night school at the college here, came to
the advisory board first that was still in existence and said he wanted to take in
some female students. So if a lot of debate, the idea was okay, we'll take him in
for an evening, but not in a daytime. So they were first allowed into taking night
classes and the enrollment of female students started to increase rapidly, very
rapidly at night. So then the transition period took place. So then the regular
board of trustees had the, had it. Should they allow female students in the day
school? In hindsight, I think I was wrong, because I was one of those who
thought, no it should remain an all male college because I went to an all male
college and I sort of enjoyed it. And I had a couple of my daughters went to an
all female college and a couple of my sons went to an all male college, like
Holy Cross, Fairfield, and like that. But then I began to see the Jesuits was
allowing most of their colleges to go co-ed and I was very close to a lot of
Jesuits and I spoke to a lot of them and in relation to it. And I they thought that
for the future survival of a private college, they had to go co-ed. And if it
didn't, they didn't think the either all female or all male could last very long as
a private institution, because the expense of it was going up and the
scholarships and all should be opened up to females as well as males and all.
Jack Gartland (01:22:16):


So after, I don't know how long we'd debated it, but it was a long time, maybe
I'd say six months, nine months, something like that. And finally we've said, we
took a vote, the vote was pretty close, but the, to a lot of the co-ed went out.
And so finally we open the doors then to female students. And I think now it's
more than 50% female.
Anthony Cernera (01:22:38):
51%.
Jack Gartland (01:22:38):
51% in the college here.
Anthony Cernera (01:22:41):
One quarter of our alumni association are women so it's been a dramatic change.
Jack Gartland (01:22:47):
Well, I don't think we regretted it under any circumstance. In fact, I think it's
been a very big plus, but the transition during that time is always debatable.
And I suppose it's because of tradition really that causes that. I know a lot of
the feminists would criticize all the males who were not a hundred percent in
favor of it or something like that. But I think the beauty of it is that we've been
able to accept it and then try to change our physical plan and make it available
so that the female student has just as much rights and opportunities as the male
student. And I think that is a real plus for the college and particularly for
increase enrollment
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:23:41):
When you refer to the all male and all female, I remember the only two colleges
in Poughkeepsie at the time were Vassar and Marist. So when we had meetings
in Albany in any academic procession, I was always booked to walk along with
the president of Vassar college.
Anthony Cernera (01:24:01):
Well, listen, let me, let's take a broad look back. I'm sure there's been a lot of
serious moments in the last 40 years of this institution, but there's probably
been some funny moments along the way. You've got a funny story to tell us
Paul, from the early days, and Jack, I'll ask you to maybe recount a funny
incident or two along the way. Anything that kind of sticks out there as a time
that really made you chuckle and laugh?
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:24:27):
Well this is not a chuckle, but it's an admiration. And I'm happy to say this
because of the nature in which the college developed. You see, it started as, and
I'm very proud of this incident. And I'm referring to Dr. Schroder, Dr. Schroeder


was the first layman employed here full-time and he's a wonderful person. He
was head of the English department at Arlington high school.
Jack Gartland (01:25:05):
I thought it was Oakwood school.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:25:07):
No.
Jack Gartland (01:25:07):
He was a Quaker wasn't he?
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:25:08):
He is a Quaker but he was teaching head of English department at Arlington
high school. And he, I checked back his credentials. He had a doctorate in
education and a doctorate in English. I went to see the man and I asked him, I
explained to him what we're going to do. We're getting in on a ground floor was
starting a young college and you know, when Albany told me to get lay board of
trustees, I went to you and they said, well, they said, you need some lay
teachers. Well, I mean, doctors, I got some of the brothers, but I needed more.
So I went to see Dr. Schroder, and I said, you have two degrees that I'm
interested in. I explained that we're starting and he said, "sir, I would be very,
very much interested in this, getting in on the ground floor of a young college."
I said, "but there are a few drawbacks." I said, "I cannot pay you the salary that
you're getting now." He was ahead of the department, the English department. I
said, "this is what I'm able to afford to give to you now but the college will
grow and the salary will grow and everything will grow with time." He said,
"well, if it's a young college just starting out, I would very much like to be
associated with it and it's not a matter of salary." I said, "well, I appreciate that
because then it means it's a matter of dedication." He said, "yes" and everything
was wonderful. He had agreed to come and we drew up the contract and one day
we were waiting for him to finalize the contract, he had the copy. We were down
in what is now the library that is the brother's dining room. And one of the
brothers told me, brother master, there's a gentleman out there waiting, calling
and would like to see you. So I came up to where the chapel is and it was Dr.
Schroder and the other contract. He said, "brother, I'm ready to sign this. But he
said, "I have some obligation to fulfill." I said, "what's the matter doctor is the
contract unsatisfactory?" "Oh, no, very, very satisfactory." But he said, "there's
something that bothers me that I must tell you. I said, "well, what is it?" He
said, "I look forward to coming here. I know it's a Catholic college. I know it's
all brothers." But he says, "I don't know if you know that I am not a Catholic." I
said, "it never entered into my mind." I said, "I know we're hiring you for your
doctorate doctor, not for your religion." He said, "I am a Quaker." I said,
"doctor, answer me one question." "Would you say that you're a good Quaker?"
He said, "well, I try to be." I said, "that's all that matters." So we hired him and


from that moment on, we never questioned a person's religion in what started it
out as an all religious college. We never question the person's religion, you
know, but his qualifications. And I think that I give credit to Dr. Schroder
willing to come to accept a lesser salary to get in on the ground floor. That man
has worked very hard for the college. Jack said of the night school, eating
school, he was awarded an honorary degree, he's retired and I'd like to say that I
keep in touch with him. He lives in Venice, Florida in the winters and back up
here in pleasant valley in the summer. And in the winter, I go to Florida and I
visit him, stay over, and he would've come, but he's an author. He would've
come to our convocation. I invited him for June 6th, but he cannot travel too
much because of his legs, but he is a great person.
Anthony Cernera (01:29:18):
In 1967, was the first presidential award that was given to anybody at a
breakfast like they have every year. And Dr. John Schroeder and myself were
the first recipients of that. I remember that very well. And it came as a surprise
to both of us. I was very friendly with John Schroeder. And we went to that
breakfast that morning. The two of us were sitting there together, and we were
kidding about some of the things that were happening on campus here and at the
college and all. And we weren't paying any attention to what was going on. And
all of a sudden I hear his name called out and I said, Hey, John, I said, they just
called your name out like that. And he looked up, you know, he wasn't paying
any attention and Linus Foy's sitting up here and he's got a scowel on. He had
already asked Dr. Schroeder to come up for his award. And we were just talking,
you know, wasn't paying any attention. So, because I always butted in and I
said, in front of a couple hundred men at the breakfast hall. And I said, what'd
you say Linus? And he said, I asked Dr. Schroeder to come up here. So he went
up and he got the award. Next, they gave me one. So we were a little
embarrassed that day, not paying attention to what was going on.
Jack Gartland (01:30:41):
You talk about a humorous incident. I was chairing the board of trustees in 1973
and at the graduation that was '72 to '73 and the graduation in '73, it was in the
afternoon, and it was in Leonidoff field, and the podium was always on the east
side so that the afternoon sun, you know, came right into your face and the
students were out there in front of you. So it was in the afternoon. So I went
down and played golf that morning and had lunch. I guess I had a couple of
beers and a good size lunch. And I come up here like at two o'clock or so for the
graduation and while I was going on, and they snap some pictures.
Unfortunately, I had dozed off, in my picture you can see me almost sound
asleep. The following year, Malcolm Wilson was governor of the state at that
time and he was coming down here to get an honorary degree and to be the
commencement speaker and there had been a man that was in the customer state
hospital, who was sent threatening letters to Malcolm Wilson. And he had been
let out and they were trying to recapture him and they couldn't. And that
morning at graduation, again, it was the same thing, it was hot sun that day and


I played golf that morning and came up here and like that. But that morning, up
in the parking lot at St. Francis hospital, they found a van up there and it was
full of guns and a lot of different kinds of weapons and everything like that. So
the BCI, the state troopers, came down here and drove, and looked over the
captured stuff that was up there in the hospital grounds and they figured out that
they may have been up there in order to make a threat on Malcolm Wilson's life.
So in the processional coming down, they must have had about 10 state troopers
who were dressed up in cap and gowns that sat amongst the students. And there
were a couple up on the podium with us. So Malcolm Wilson and I are just
sitting here like this and we're chatting and all, and this fellow behind me, taps
me on his shoulder and he said, Mr. Garland, would you mind moving a little bit
to the left? He says, you're in my line of fire. And I must say, boy, I didn't doze
that day at all.
Anthony Cernera (01:33:14):
We've had sitting here on the table here a plaque and Brother Paul, I'm gonna
ask you to give a little bit of background about what this award is after I
mentioned it and to talk about why Jack received it. It says the congregation of
the Marist brothers of the school, wishing to express gratitude, appreciation, and
for the devoted service to the Marist brothers and to the community of Marist
college. For that purpose on a general session of their congregation made Mr.
John Gartland Jr. An affiliated member of the Marist brothers congregation. Are
these kinds of rewards given out often? And what's the significance?
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:33:55):
This stage from way back in the beginning of the order, when we, you know, we
sometime we have a hard time to manage, we need, we need help. With the help
of doctors or lawyers or financeers and so on. And where a person has been
exceptionally helpful, not only by his contributions, but by his loyalty and his
dedication to what we stand for, not for an individual project, or this, we're
putting up this so we want help for a situation, but consistently dedicated and
loyal to what we stand for and not ashamed of it and willing to, and he's a man
who's after our founder, doing good quietly, who's not looking for that type of
award. We allow the individual provinces like United States as a province or
two provinces. They can give a little local award to an individual in recognition
of what he has done, but a man who has done exceptionally has been proven
exceptionally loyal to the order from headquarters decides to affiliate him. The
affiliation includes his wife and his family, and we are obligated to daily and
forhid the duration of his life to keep his family and his intentions in our
prayers. And this list is all over the globe. Since the beginning of the order, the
beginning of the order, in 1817, which is now spread in 72 countries, in 846
schools and so on, it's widespread, there has been, you know, one or two or
three a year. We have a total right now I believe of 406 affiliated members all
over the world. It gives them a right to come into our mother house at any time
to visit, to stay there and so on. It's an entry card into any Marist house, besides
the assurance of prayers for the duration of his life for our family. And Jack


highly deserved this because I'd like to say something which is maybe out of
water, but I'm saying it anyway. When I went to get Jack for member of the
board of trustees, because I needed them, we needed it. But I knew of his
loyalty to the brothers of his work with the brothers. I knew his work as a
lawyer, I knew that he had been in our school and there was no question at that
time. Jack had absolutely nothing to do at that time with the McCann
foundation. So we were not going after the Jack because of the McCann
foundation. We went because of what Jack had to offer in his own quiet, simple
way. He's a man who does a lot of good quietly. Very few people know the
extent of the good that he does. He is living his life according to the spirit that
our founder gave us. We cherish that, we appreciate his dedication to us, to our
cause, to furthering that. And not only is it well deserved, it's one of the few in
this country that's well deserved. Glad to say this publicly because he has it
coming to him.
Anthony Cernera (01:37:47):
Thank you, Paul.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:37:48):
One of the, you asked for an interesting, it's not humerous, but for example,
when we put up this seed of wisdom chapel, the seed of wisdom chapel was put
up in 1953, it was supposed to be dedicated for the Marion year. All through the
church they celebrated the Marion year, dedication to our lady and we decided
that our chapel would be ready for the Marion year which started on December
8th, immaculate conception, 1953. Our chapel was ready for that. And this
chapel, and I say this with pride, that Nilus designed, and we talked over and so
on as Octa alone, right? It was the first chapel or church ever built with the altar
in the center and the fateful around it. And when Cardinal Spellman came to
dedicated in May of 1950, he was up there pontificating in the chapel and he
grabbed my hand and he said, Paul, this is the church of the future. That was a
privilege. I mean, that was a compliment that he made. But what the story that I
want to tell is that the beams of this chapel, which are maybe 36 feet long, all
laminated the two by six is laminated 10 deep. This was all made in on the west
coast in Oregon. And this was brought here by freight trains and it was
delivered behind the do so chemical. Remember do so chemical landing across
route nine, the back of Western, there's a railroad landing and those low bottom
flat cars where all these beams were on there. And Nilus had a crane and he
came up with the crane and how in the world was he gonna grab a beam and go
all the way down, and bring this thing over to put him in place.
Anthony Cernera (01:40:05):
And this was an old used crane too.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:40:08):


And I had not too much confidence in the crane, frankly. I said, Nilus forget it.
I said, I have a solution. I gave him 32 or 36 brothers, I says, you go and I
forget how many beams there are, maybe 10. I said, you go and see how many
brothers you need to lift one of those beams and carry it. The brothers carried,
he said he needed 32 or 36 or whatever the number. I chose all the Huskies to go
over with Nilus and they came and I stood in my casing and route nine stopped
all the traffic both ways and let the brothers pass. They carried the beam over to
the building site. Then, we resumed the traffic. We did that for every one of the
beams. We didn't need a truck, we didn't need a hoist or anything.
Anthony Cernera (01:41:08):
Listen, in our closing few minutes we've spent a lot of time today talking about
the history, but Marist College is not only rich in its history, but it's also rich in
its promise for the future. What must Marist College do to remain a vibrant,
strong institution as it looks forward to the 21st century? I'd like both of you to
maybe dream a little bit.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:41:33):
I think it's on the right track with this communication center that we're in. This
is something terrific. And it has, it has gone, gone whole for computers, which
is what the people need today. And I'm very proud of what we are offering. I
have a concern, I expressed it. And I repeat it. Your use of this Whitman
building on what they call the Marist East, that bothers me.
Jack Gartland (01:42:03):
Bothers me too.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:42:08):
There may never be an accident on route nine, but this is a main archery. And I
feel that if there should be one, it would be almost unforgivable. You know, I
am looking forward to the day when we have a building, a classroom building,
our academic building on this side of the road. I look forward to that day.
Jack Gartland (01:42:30):
That's in the works, Paul. That is in the works, you know. I don't mean to know
or not, but we as you know, or may have seen rather, that big rock pile is out
there. Well, the architect that designed this building, we asked him to look at
that site out there as a possible new classroom building so we can bring all the
students back over on this side of route nine. And he said, the first thing, we
have to get rid of that rock pile and bring it down to a level. So this past winter,
we were able to get a company to give us a good figure on blasting it all so it is
all loose. However, we do not have permission from the town under their zoning
laws to get it down, but we have an application out there right now. So they will
give us permission to get rid of all that rock. What we are going to do is we're
gonna bring in a portable rock crusher, we'll crush up all that rock into little


pieces and use that as a bed for the various roads that will be built on campus to
tie in the north end and the south end, really to make it so that students don't
have to drive out on route nine and go around. They'll be able to do things on
campus here.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:43:48):
You're going back to our roots because we used to have a crusher on campus
because there's a lot of granite in Champ and we used it to fill it out.
Jack Gartland (01:43:53):
And once we do that, we also have plans of being designed by the architect for a
possible classroom building and incidentally Jack Newman, now one of our
trustees, is heading up a capital campaign, which hopefully will be used to raise
funds for the- there's no classroom building. I know Tony can tell more about
that because that's under his jurisdiction here at the college. And I do think that
would be a big plus.
Anthony Cernera (01:44:28):
It's definitely a major concern of the trustees and there's a solid commitment on
our part to try to make that new classroom building happen.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:44:39):
Another concern-
Anthony Cernera (01:44:40):
Within four years.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:44:41):
Well, I'm very happy to hear that
Anthony Cernera (01:44:44):
So when you get back from Africa, you'll have a new classroom building.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:44:47):
This would please me very much because I believe that the college will grow
more, but I hope it won't grow too much. I think it's good to keep it as a small
college. I don't know what you enroll now-
Anthony Cernera (01:45:00):
Just about 3000.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:45:01):


Well you might go to five, but I wouldn't go beyond five if you have to. I would
like it to keep as a small college, but exclusive.
Jack Gartland (01:45:13):
Is what about 3000 full-time equivalents?
Anthony Cernera (01:45:16):
Yes.
Jack Gartland (01:45:17):
About 3,600 bodies altogether is that about right?
Anthony Cernera (01:45:19):
That's right. That's about right.
Jack Gartland (01:45:20):
S0, because there are part-time students that's why that happens on it. But one
of the, another thing that we've got vision to do is to put in what we call a
Marist village which will be a little commercial venture on route nine where the
bank, Texas bank building is now, and to the east of the apartments. And we'll
take in south to where the gas station is there. We hope to eliminate the gas
station and build this in there whereby the college book store, as an example,
can be moved in one of those buildings. And then there'll be maybe a
convenience store, which will be to the benefit of the students here. There might
be a fast food place, we don't know yet, but then there'll be perhaps a, maybe a
barber shop, maybe a laundromat and things like that, that would be available to
the public, but also be available for the students and the students really need
that. And I think it would be a big plus, plus it would produce a little revenue
for the college and, but the main thrust of it is it would be for the convenience
of the students because we have, what do we got, almost 2000 on campus,
resident students on campus, you have 2000 students plus the faculty here, that's
a big drawing group right there for that. So I think in relation to the future
plans, we'll have then a master plan for the whole college, which the architect is
now designing, which will show where the roads will be and where everything
will be. And we still have room for two more townhouses on this side of that big
parking lot out there. Just to the west here of this Lowell Thomas building and
we probably also have probably not too many more places on campus for, for
dormitories or for apartments or townhouse like that. But we're gonna try to
keep it at around a 3000 level. I don't think we want to go to 5,000.I,
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:47:32):
But I would hate to see it go to 5,000 or over, I think it should be kept rather
small. And stress the efficiency, that its it's worth its quality.
Anthony Cernera (01:47:46):


When this interview started, an hour and a half of ago, we asked Brother Paul
about what was his inspiration to become a Marist brother. And he recalled the
concept of mission that the Marist brothers were sent on mission. It may
surprise to those of you who will watch this interview to find out that this
concern for mission is still a driving force in brother Paul's life. In fact, on his
birthday, August 28th, this year, brother Paul will leave the United States to go
to work in one of the developing nations of the world, Liberia, to help a new
church, a developing church in that country to grow and to become strong. Paul,
can you give us just a few words about that impending mission and
responsibility.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:48:36):
I've always wanted to be a missionary and when I asked to go out here, when I,
when I took my vows, I asked to because we take three, four vows, the, the
normal three, and then some take the vow with stability, the vow, never to leave
the order which I took. And when I was commissioned to get this college
organized, I worked from 1943 to '46 to get it. The college charter was given to
us in '46. I took the vow never to leave the order in '46. And I asked then to go,
I said, now that you got what you asked of me, let me go to the missions. He
says, you're not finished. There's a lot more work. You've gotta stay here. So I
stayed here and I asked repeatedly to go to the missions as irony would have it I
went to Rome for 18 years to work for my order and the Vatican. And I held the
Vatican diplomatic passport to work for them. And I've, I visited missions all
over the world, you know, traveled all over the world. I traveled eight months
out of every year for 18 years and visited missions. So I know missions and I've
been attracted to missions. And the last convocation which we had because of
the brothers, August 15th, that you refer to, the Bishop where we, the brothers
are going. We decided that to thank the Lord for a hundred years of service in
the United States, we opened a mission in a poor country for poor boys, poor
students. And we sent a team to investigate, they decided on Liberia. I had
nothing to do with it and they went there and the Bishop had only four or five
priests. And the brothers opened the school, which is going to be 12 classes,
eight elementary and four high school. We sent three brothers, another one went
in February. I told them, then at that time I'd be willing to go. So they looked at
me rather strangely and my buddy brother Norman, my age, my group said the
same thing. At the convocation that year we all had with us, the two of us, we
had a white cassock ready in case we were, they finally accepted. They thought
we were kidding. The Bishop heard that I was anxious to come. He came and he
pleaded with me to accept, to go there as administrative diocese. He only has
four priests, and the priest who was being administrative diocese was also in
charge of the seminary and it was too much work. I told him, Bishop, if my
superiors allow me to go, I will go gladly but not before September '87, because
I'm committed to this present job until the end of June. So he asked the
superiors, if I'd come. The superiors asked me. I said, well, you're asking me to
go to India and I was willing to go, but you can't get into India. They don't want
any more missionaries in Pakistan. I started, they asked me to come. I said, I'll


go Pakistan. I'll go to Liberia, whatever you want, but I'll go at any time. And I
am very, very happy that I was the brother, Charles Howard superior said, well,
the brothers are just starting in Liberia. We'd like you to go there and help out
because you can. You're an older person and brother Norman is of my age is
also there. The young men that are trained there, I've had him here in training,
in Poughkeepsie. I've trained all of them and they asked me to come so I'm
going with a thrill, I'm anxious to go. It's poor, there's no electricity, we boil
the water, we have to travel 350 miles for the nearest post office, bank, or
shopping center. And we need a Jeep because it's muddy road. But here is a
challenge to me. I say this in all humility. I believe I am a GTD man. They put
me in this job here to get things done. And I'm a mover, you know? And this is a
challenge, but this is for me, reverse discrimination. Here is a person who had a
significant job in his order, going to be the secretary of a young black Bishop.
This is a tremendous tribute that the church wants to manifest to the black
people of Africa. You know, I am willing to do this. I have been psyching
myself to keep the breaks on, you know, to be a John the Baptist where he must
increase, I must decrease. I've gotta act in the back, advise him quietly, not to
put him on the spot. So it's a tremendous personal challenge to me that I am
facing. Very happy to do so. I spend this whole year contacting foundations. I've
already picked up about no money for the furniture of the school and money for
one generator. I have to get money for another generator. I have a foundation in
session on the 15th of May to answer me if they will furnish me with a Jeep. I
have a Lee Iacocca letter that he's studying to find out whether he can help me.
So you see, I'm way back in 1943, all over again at 74 years of age and I am
very grateful that the Lord is giving me this challenge. I accepted for three
years because in 1990, I'll celebrate 60 years as a Marist brother, I will come
back to celebrate with my buddies, but if my health is still good, if I am a help
and not a hindrance, I'll go back there. If I cannot go back, I'll retire here at
Marist college in that building that you're going to put up.
Anthony Cernera (01:54:48):
Okay. We'll have room here for you, Paul,
Dennis Murray (01:54:51):
As you can see the reason why Marist college is the vibrant growing institution
that it is, is because of these two GTD men, men who have gotten things done
here at Marist college and are continuing to get things done. Jack and Paul,
thank you for what's been an inspiring moment for me.
Jack Gartland (01:55:12):
Thanks.
Brother Paul Ambrose (01:55:12):
Thank you.