May 14,2016 – Reno, Nevada. A long and at times seemingly endless journey toward a PhD came to a close this morning here in Reno. While the finishing touches are yet to be applied to the dissertation, I am today by a decree of the State of Nevada, Dr. Joe Russo. Feels good. And it felt doubly good to sit through the entire ceremony with Tom Harrison – truly a wonderful mentor and friend. People who have not gone through this process cannot understand the power of one’s advisor. Tom never ever gave up on me.
There really isn’t much else to say about it, other than the sky was blue, the graduation speeches were terrific, and the people by and large well behaved. I marched with Dr. Carol Godwin who, like me, has been struggling for years to bring this process to an end. I was so glad that she was there. I was also pleased to see Allyson Tatro’s brother graduate and take a BA in Liberal Arts despite coming up one credit short because of an acute and rapid onset of Alzheimer’s. So sad, but I am proud of the University that it did the right thing.
Mom and Edwina were there, along with Skip and Nilsine.
Lynda Wiest too. Here is a picture of Cindy and I with our friend Lynda. Below will be a picture of Skip and Nilsine, and then my mom and Edwina.
Years ago, Rich McGuffin asked me why I wanted a PhD on top of the MBA, BBA and the newly minted MA in Ed Psych. This was my answer:
“I want a PhD because someday, however fanciful, I’d like to teach at the college level; and while we’re on the topic of fanciful, I have a dream, however implausible it may seem to some, to one day be a marriage and family therapist, for which being “Dr. Joe” might somehow lend additional credibility to a therapeutic approach that is irritating to my professors but oddly effective with my clients (at least in the 3,000 or so hours I have been doing it). Because Don Huggins has neither a PhD nor an MBA, and it was he who stood between me and an MFTI. Because I’ll turn 59½ anyway. Because someday I’d like to write a book for which being a PhD is good marketing. Because I love bookstores and libraries and the environs of knowledge. Because I’ll no longer be lying to United Airlines. Because while I’m not the first in my family to get a PhD nor an MBA, I am without question the most unlikely. Because as it happens very few Sicilians get advanced degrees. Because it might get me my own TV show. Because I love learning and how it responds to quite determination and humility. And finally, because it represents a whole pile of unfinished business around my self-concept of just how smart I really am, that armed with a PhD and an MBA I could at last say fuck off to carloads of people who never thought I had what it took (or takes), including not just a few people and professors currently in my life. So, there. Amen.”
— with apologies to Judge Volker
N.B. Judge Volker, for those of you who don’t know, wrote something years and years ago about this love of fishing, and it was his words that inspired the above “outburst.” Huggins was the man who got between me and a license in Nevada. I only hope bad things for that asshole. United Airlines had, at the beginning of their rewards program some 40 years ago, mistakenly put me down as Dr. Joe Russo, a title which got me more upgrades than not but which wasn’t true until now.
During the course of the ceremony, I was struck by the diversity of the crowd. Many surnames were Hispanic, if the inflection placed on the name by the announcer was any indication. Thank goodness the announcer doesn’t have to do that with Russo. Anyway, the numbers of Hispanics and people of color were higher than perhaps I would have predicted. I do hope they can do something with their new-found education.
Leaving the University, we wandered north and through the newer parts of the campus. I wondered how much it had changed since the days when both Skip and Nilsine went here. It is huge now and probably twice as big as it was even when I started here ten years ago. I can only guess that it is maybe 5 times as big as when they went here.
We paused in front of the College of Education where we met Ken Koll, the present dean, along with William Sparkman, the Dean when I began my work here. Fun to see old Sparky.
We got to the car 30 minutes later. The campus is THAT big.
All in all, a wonderful experience and I am glad that Cindy made me do it.
