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My name is James Kinder. I graduated from Rice 50 years ago and was a member of Will Rice College. And I have two stories that I have about Rice professors that made a lasting impact on me. And the first one is about a dear biology professor,

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Dr. Clark Read, who taught parasitology and I took his parasitology course as a junior I believe, which would have been '71, '72 and then was privileged to take his graduate course in parasitology. The following year, my senior year ' 72, '73 and the spring of '73 in particular, I

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remember I was doing research on some tapeworms and I had applied to the Peace Corps and was scheduled to leave Rice uh after graduation, May of '73 and then head to Korea uh for two years working with tuberculosis. And one afternoon after our parasitology lab, we

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went to the Rice Memorial Center, the cafeteria there and sat down as a group with Dr. Read, whom I revered as a teacher and professor and, and friend. And I confided in the group that I was headed to Korea in the Peace Corps. And Dr. Read

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in particular said something to me that stayed with me throughout my tour there, two years from '73 to '75 in care. He said, well, James, I envy you. I envy you. And that stayed with me and his uh textbook on parasitology. He did not write that

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particular textbook. He wrote a beautiful one. But I had another one while I was there in his graduate course. And I took that with me on my second tour in the Peace Corps in Micronesia where I had a microscope. And I looked at all of these

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different parasites in person that I had studied about in his class uh as an undergraduate. And then in, in his graduate course, and I remembered his words and they meant so much to me and how he approached uh the study of parasitology as an adventure. And

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it stayed with me during those three years in Micronesia where I uh studied the parasites. And I also caught each one of them personally. And uh I had to treat myself because as a physician assistant, that was what I studied in between Korea and Micronesia. I

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knew enough to know what medications to treat myself for the various parasites. So that was my story. Uh That is my story about Dr. Clark Read in the biology department. I just love the man. Then my second story is of an English professor uh here at

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Rice uh who taught me world literature and that would have been my junior year, uh, '71, '72 the fall and spring semesters. His name was Dr. Terry Doody and he was young, fresh out of Cornell had bushy brown or blonde curly hair and he used to smoke

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in the classroom and he smoked unfiltered, I think palms and he would tap them on his watch. Then he would light up, uh, with a book of matches and a cloud of smoke would uh curl around his head, curly blonde hair and he would hold the

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whole class. It was, he was just such a popular professor in English and he would hold the whole class wrapped in attention uh about Faulkner's Absalom. Absalom. He opened that up for me and Joyce's James Joyce's Ulysses and in particular one day, uh we were discussing

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Ulysses and, and we had gotten to the end of the book and it was just such a marvelous opening that he had done of that book for the whole class and he had made it come alive such a difficult text so long and involved. And the

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on the last page, I had a question for Dr. Doody and I asked him, what was Molly Bloom doing or talking about when she kept saying yes, yes and yes, I am. Yes. And at on the very last page. And so he proceeded to explain, I

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asked the question and he explained to the whole class what in fact, she was doing which I will not repeat here uh in this recording. And when he did, I, he used a word, I didn't even think you could say and mixed company in 1972. And

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I kind of, I'm sure my ears turned red and, but it was just another instance of how he made that book and all of world literature come alive. And so that was the memory at the time. Well, I had another memory with him, which was 40

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years later in uh 2013, in a little urgent care clinic in Waynesboro, Virginia. And I was working as a physician assistant there and in came a patient, a young lady. Uh and uh I think I treated her for uh a superficial laceration of her thumb. She

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cut herself uh gardening or something. And so we got to talking and I asked, what was, who was her primary care physician in the area? And she said, no, I've lived all around. I went to the school in Texas last. And I said, well, I went

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to school in Texas. I graduated from rice in '73. And she said I graduated from rice about 10 years ago, which would have been 2003 at the time. And I said, well, I was a biochemistry major and she said she was in the School of music

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and loved the, the campus and the experience. And I said, well, my favorite course there, my favorite professor was a world literature course and it was taught by a Dr. Terry Doody. And she said he was my favorite teacher there at Rice. And I took that

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course and I said, or she said, have you been back? And I said, I haven't at the time I had not been back. And this is my first time back and 45 years since my graduation, 50 years ago. And she said, well, I went back a

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couple of years ago and I saw Dr. Doody across the quadrangle and I was so shy, I didn't go up to see him to thank him for the impact that he made on me as a student in his world literature class. And uh that struck me

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at the time and I got on the rice.edu website and I con I emailed Dr. Doody and I it was just kind of an open email to him, uh saying how much I appreciated his uh touching so many students, me in particular in that world literature

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class for Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom and James Joyce's Ulysses and how much I appreciate it. And it was my thank you note to him. And he wrote me back and it was very touching because he said at the time, this would have been 2013 that he was

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considering retiring. And he was looking back over his career here at Rice and he was remembering so, and this had added one fond memory to his, his memories as a professor here of English at Rice. And he said, if they only knew how much, how little

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I knew uh when I would walk from Fondren library to the class. Uh and, and straight out of Cornell, a young graduate professor of English. And he appreciated my reaching out to him. And he said, if I had only said thank you to my high school

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English teacher himself that had made an impact on him and started him on his career to learn about literature and, and touch so many. But it was an essay that I ended up writing on gratitude. And I, I wrote him, Dr. Doody. Could I use your

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email anonymously in this uh essay, this little blog post on gratitude. And he said, sure. And so it made it into a book which I sent to him. And it was just one more very fond memory that connected me back here to Rice. And I I

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it's been such a blessing to get back here now, 50 years after my graduation. Thank you.