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GRADUATION AIN’T NO SLAM DUNK

GRADUATION AIN’T NO SLAM DUNK
GRADUATION AIN’T NO SLAM DUNK
They didn’t look like me. Not in any shape, form, or fashion.
Close to 300 of us filled the seats in the UCLA Haines Hall lecture room. But not one, not one, of them looked like me.
The Professor, Dr. Harold Garfinkle, a world-renown Sociologist, and creator of a theory called Ethnomethodology, stood, like I always saw him on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at the lectern, spouting how this creation of his was applied to research.
But this day, this last day of class, the last day before the academic quarter would end, following his lecture, Garfinkle had something else to say.
“The final exam will be given next. . . . .”
What!
What did he just say?
 I stood up, stood up from my front-row seat.
Professor Harold Garfinkle
Standing in disbelief, I looked into the learned professor’s squinted eyes that were glaring and blinking fiercely at me
through his spectacles and from underneath his thinning and wrinkled brows.
“You can’t do that,” I said. Actually, I think I shouted.
“Your class syllabus says there is a final research paper – not a final exam. There is NO listing of a required exam.”
I’m a senior. I’m graduating – in fact I’m already automatically accepted into graduate school as a Departmental Scholar in Sociology.
At this point in my successful academic journey, I wasn’t about to fail ethnomethodology because this world-famous creator decided to pull a bait and switch.
 With his eyes still glaring and blinking fiercely, but now with his chest and lips quivering, he was no longer the smooth-talking professor giving a lecture.
“ Just who are you – what are you doing in my class. Give me your name NOW”
While Garfinkle was still breathing hard and glaring at me, I moved past him to the lecture room exit and headed down the hallway straight to see the chairman of the Sociology Department.
Five or six of them- who didn’t look like me – found me in the hallway, found out where I was headed, and asked if they could join me.
We were all ushered into the head-guys office and given seats around a table. I explained the Bait and Switch and why I was unable to accept this untimely, last-minute intrusion.
“Take the exam, If it doesn’t work out, then we’ll decide what to do next,”
the chairman advised
The ones who didn’t look like me said, “OK”.
Who was I Garfinkle had asked?
I was a single mom on welfare living in UCLA married student housing. Before catching the shuttle to campus each morning I got 5 kids off to pre-school, elementary, and junior high school.
When I returned home, on the shuttle, at the end of my academic day, I picked up five kids from 3 different schools, reviewed their homework assignments, cooked dinner, cleaned house, had some fun time with the kids, got them off to bed, did my own studies and prayed I’d get enough sleep before the same routine began playing-out the next day.
My life belonged to my kids. (Pictured; Paul, Patti, Peggy, Pia, Pamela). My academic success was to be their roadmap for success. My UCLA schedule and my household organization were already stamped with success; there was no room for the professor’s “Bait and Switch” intrusion.
The students who didn’t look like me took the exam; most did poorly.
They were kids -18, maybe 19 years old.
They didn’t look like me; I was old.
I was thirty-something.
I didn’t take the exam; I did quite well.
With the Department’s assistance, I created my own “Bait and Switch”.
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This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Shirlee – I introduced my daughter (Jenelle) to your work when she was a journalist is high school in 2004. She has since graduated high school, UC-Fullerton, worked 10 years at the Claremont Courier as the Arts and Entertainment Editor, and is now on the Executive Board of Trinity Foster Care for 5 years now. Please know how much your example has shaped her life. Bravo Shirlee

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  2. Bravo back to you and your daughter for being part of making a difference in the lives of others. What a compliment you have paid me – introduced your daughter to my work- how blessed I am to have made a positive influence.

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