I was planning to write many stories of the time when I worked with you as Head.
Two weeks into my joining Linguistics, Michael Rochemont stepped down as Head, and you had to step in as Head very quickly. We had no files, and only 3 filing cabinets with only a few files as Linguistics had just moved from Buchanan C block to E block. So we made new files as we went along, and that was no easy task. To our amazement, We found out years later, as we were moving to Stores Road, that Beth from the Dean’s office had found that the movers had left behind those filing cabinets that we were missing, somewhere in C block. So my first few weeks as a new employee at Linguistics, and your first time as Head of Linguistics were crazy since we were the blind leading the blind, but we managed to do quite a good job of establishing a filing system, a graduate database that you had already started as the Graduate Advisor of the department, and a budget database, all of which I continued to use until I retired.
There are so many hilarious stories that I could tell, but I realized as I started to write them, that I would be inadvertently violating some form of confidentiality as some people would be able to figure out the identity of some in the stories. So I am not going to talk about it. You will remember most of them, I am sure.
Thank you Doug for your mentorship, wisdom and most of all your unwavering support during my time there. Wishing you the retirement you so richly deserve. It won’t be me if I don’t end by saying God bless you abundantly.
