CH 14 TEACHERS CHANGE LIVES (in progress)

Louis Maslinoff

 by Patricia Vining

Springtime 1974 at SUNY (State University of New York) Running back into the lecture hall he shouted “Oh no! It’s Maslinoff!” About 35 of us were waiting for our assigned student teaching supervisor. I quickly learned from the 10 students preparing to exit that Maslinoff was tough, demanding and exacting.  “I’m not putting myself through this. We don’t want to work that hard. ” The informants were happy to leave but I was trapped. As a senior I could not afford to take the class next year.

Maslinoff began by telling us:  

“You’re not going to get a job. There are no jobs. You would have to be super human. If you’re not going to work hard, don’t waste my time.” 

It was the spring of 1974, there were no jobs. When I applied, there were thousands of applications for just two jobs.

Ladycliff College, in New York, had just opened a new dorm on a first come first served basis, Spellman Hall,. We were the among first to apply, and second on the list to occupy.  We bought new matching curtains for our room, new sheets but there we two girls in our room when we arrived. They were F students on the verge of expulsion who would never have applied on time. They hadn’t even made the list. They were never on time. We went straight to the dean, a nun who advocated for them: “Oh you’ll be fine, they’re needy students, they need a second chance.”

I lacked “agency”.  I’d aways been submissive. But this was the first time I stood up for myself: “So you’re going to reward bad behavior and penalize two students who did everything you asked on time. The nun was speechless. Then: “Fine, take your room.” But when roll was taken at my first class, the professor said my name wasn’t on the roll. The dean had changed my status to “transferred to another university.”  I was determined to stay but by the time I corrected her vindictive move, most of the classes I needed were full.

So when Maslinoff said “You’re not going to get a job. There are no jobs. You would have to be super human.” I thought:  “Who the hell are you?  You don’t even know me!  I went home thinking: “I’ll show him!”

But he was the first teacher that made me feel like a genius. That I had value and purpose in the world. He got me involved with outdoor education. Maslinoff made me want to be the best teacher I could be.  

“Mr. Rutkowski changed the trajectory of my life.”

by Patricia Vining

Later came a former Marine become art professor at LSU, Rutkowski was an extraordinary art teacher who gave us very challenging assignments. Once he ripped a ten foot long sheet of paper from a six food wide roll of news print mounted high on one wall. He was scary. Swiftly moving around the room, twisting, crumpling it into a paper sculpture he said: “Now draw it.” 

His 3 hour lab art course included critique days. We’d been working charcoal on twenty four by 36 inch sheets which were now 25 charcoals posted around the classroom.  He started with one piece from a part time student, a retired 72 year old woman whose work had an etherial, DaVinci-like quality. He turned to her after critiquing her work: “You should be here full time.”  

Coming next to my work, he ripped it off the wall, crumpled it, trashed it, flung it down, stomped and ground it into the floor. There was a collective gasp but he said not a word instead going on to critique the next piece. Mortified I sat with over two hours of lab left, but stayed. I was the last to leave when he stopped me and said quietly: “You don’t belong here, you belong in the School of Design across campus.” 

Positive comments on my skill were rare and when they did occur I’d brush them off in disbelief looking for other reasons why a teacher would compliment my work.

Early on I lacked agency, self confidence.  So why did I believe Rutkowski?  After class I acquired the Design School Catalog, studied their courses and enrolled in their program, became a designer, and launched my own design firm, that came to have four Fortune 500 clients. Thank you Mr. Rutkowski.

“Dr. Barbara Clark showed me where I belonged.”

by Toby Manzanares