Tributes

Hock Guan (Bob) Tjoa

Malaysia, Asia

What was I doing the day President Kennedy was shot? I was in a class on the History of the Jews in Antiquity and Middle Ages, taught by Professor Nahum Glatzer. Someone had a transistor radio on and, during the class, announced that the president had passed away.

The morning had begun like a nightmare and the day ended in a fog. There was the nightmare of gunshots in Dallas, the feverish hope that it might not/was not true, and the dawning realization that it was indeed true. There was fog -- of shock, disbelief, and a bleak detachment from reality.

Life goes on, even though a president had been killed.

Of course, I have other, happy memories of Brandeis: The inspired setting of the three chapels, the funkiness of “Chumleys,” the excitement (to me) of uncharted worlds of learning, the challenge of my fellow students, and, above all, the sense of privilege to have come from the Third World to receive a world-class education. I wished that all my classmates from high school could have been there, too.

The Wien International Scholarship Program allowed me to participate in courses and activities that I had never before even imagined -- Mediterranean Studies with Cyrus Gordon, political thought with Herbert Marcuse, intellectual history with Frank Manuel, art history with Thalia Howe, Gilbert and Sullivan, chamber music concerts at the library, and so much else. It was a great honor to have met the Wiens and then again to be with Mr. Wien on his 80th birthday.

In the 40 years since I was a student at Brandeis, I have been, in succession, a history lecturer, a banker, and a finance manager. Now retired, I live in California, dabble in community theater and Chinese history -- doing a reality check on self and roots as it were. Hardly a week goes by in which something does not remind me of something else that I learned or did at Brandeis.

I will always be grateful.