Chapter 4: Kickstarting the Motor

Summer turned quickly to fall. I was piling on hours to graduate at mid-term. To consume the rest of my time, my thesis spawned. There was enough material in my notes to do at least three solid papers. My original concept was a discussion of the impact of shelters and halfway houses on the inner city. A necessary thread running through this was a description of how shelters, and legal aid services interacted with local and state governments.

The original topic became my senior thesis, mostly because it was easiest. I graduated. Nothing much changed, because I turned to the legal aid aspect and kept working. During winter break, the University emptied out, but I barely noticed. Over the break my graduate thesis got fat, turning into a 400 page monster. The new semester meant a new thesis adviser, Madalyne Stone. She was not amused.

People are impressed that I graduated Yale in two and a half years. You need to understand I transferred most of the core credits. In high school, I did not have a social life, so I studied. By my junior year that included courses for undergraduate credit, through the state university system. That was why I mentioned Rutgers to Winthrop. Add the summer sessions to the transferred credits and it comes out eight semesters, just like it is supposed to. I am much more proud of getting a PhD in a year and a half.

It was not easy. I mentioned my thesis adviser was not amused. I think Madalyne expected to spend the spring semester telling me to settle on a topic. Since she planned to be gone by fall, my dissertation would be someone else's problem. Instead, she immediately had work to do, starting with 400 pages of reading. I give her this much, Madalyne had a good supply of red ink.

She and I butted heads from the start. For example, I would not call her Professor Stone. Her PhD was still damp and she was not on a tenure track, hence the job search. For her part, Madalyne did not want to allow research done as an undergrad. Within a week, we were in Donald Eisenmann's office. He was not yet Dean of Graduate Studies, but that was a formality. He already did the job.

From my perspective, the meeting went well. Madalyne started by objecting to my dress. I had safety pins in my face and a nipple ring showing through a hole in my shirt. This was the Assistant Dean's office, so she had a solid point. Dr. Eisenmann nodded, then motioned for her to proceed. Madalyne did for about ten minutes, while I said nothing. Once Madalyne finished with her objections, Dr. Eisenmann said to me, "Your turn." I liked that.

Rather than speak, I started laying paper on the desk. First was the Beast, complete with sticky notes, colored paper clips and all of Madalyne's red ink. Next to that I lay the footnotes, references and bibliography. Next to those I stacked my summer notes and raw data. It was a big desk, but I came close to burying it. For the first time, Dr. Eisenmann smiled. "I see the difficulty."

Madalyne probably has mixed feelings about the meeting. Dr. Eisenmann cut her in pieces with polite precision. Then he gave her the relief she wanted. Her new assignment was to coordinate another summer in Boston. I was to focus on the legal aid aspect of my work. As my adviser, Madalyne was to provide a list of points to cover with the research. In exchange, her duties toward my first draft were suspended.

With my next year thus parceled out, he said to me. "Alice Dumervil was very taken with you. She warned me you would be a shock, which you are, but she said you were smart. She might have added, you have a flair for politics. Nine out of ten times, these meetings end with me tearing strips from the grad student's hide. The tenth time, I call security. You are literally the first student to answer with silence and documentation. I'll assign someone tenured in the fall. Go make Yale proud."

I write that last line, with the source, in every notebook I carry. No one ever told Madalyne to make Yale proud. Given that, I could cut her some slack.