What’s Happening Here?
All the tough guys are gone! – This should be self-evident --- professors who would look students in the eye and say, “Yes, you failed the course --- and you deserved to fail the course. So what do you want from me?”
One of the toughest of the tough guys was Tom Murrin. Tom’s motto (though I never actually heard him say it) was, “You take a pass … he’ll have your ass.”
When I joined Duquesne back in 1999, Tom was probably the first (and for a while, it seemed like the only) individual on the faculty and/or its management that not only welcomed me to the program, but that also showed me which way the wind was blowing. His support was so very important to me. To have a guy of his caliber (he was also once president of what he liked to call the “Dirty Hands” businesses of Westinghouse) who really never cared much about whether or not you were slick, glib, and/or hip. He only cared about results.
