Tributes
Elias Dickerman
Honduras, Americas, Caribbean
I was born in Chile, the son of a Romanian father who was sent out of Europe when he was sixteen to join his older brothers in Peru. My mother was born in Chile, to a Russian father and French mother. My family moved to Honduras when I was five.I remember the day I found out I would be attending Brandeis. I was 16 years old, traveling from El Salvador to Honduras on a commercial bus, when I saw my brother and a friend driving toward me in the opposite direction, waving wildly, holding up a thick envelope, and smiling. We had agreed that if I heard from Brandeis and the envelope was thin, it would be sad news, but if it was thick, it would be good news, which was in fact the case. Thus I celebrated my 17th birthday in the United States and began my freshman year at Brandeis as a Wien Scholar. I recall vividly the first time that the group of Wien students met with Mr. Lawrence Wien, shortly after my arrival at Brandeis in 1962. I had read about Mr. Wien and his financial accomplishments, and as a 17-year-old had a preconceived notion of what such a person would be like. Nothing could have been more different than the reality! To this day, I remember Mr. Wien shaking my hand, looking at me, and saying words to the effect that he was thankful I had accepted one of his scholarships. Imagine that! Instead of accepting my thanks, he was actually thanking me for having agreed to accept such a generous scholarship. I have never forgotten Mr. Wien, and to this day am deeply grateful for his kind and far-sighted generosity.
The opportunity to come to Brandeis would not have been possible had it not been for the Wien scholarship. It allowed me to complete my bachelor’s degree at Brandeis and later earn a master’s and Ph.D. in physiology. I subsequently worked as the director of the Division of Peptide Hormones at a laboratory specializing in endocrinology in Los Angeles. A few years later, I decided to attend medical school, obtaining my M.D. degree and becoming a board-certified neurologist. To this day, I try to follow the example provided me as a young student, and for the past 20-some years I have volunteered as a clinical faculty member in the Department of Neurology at University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento (where I completed my neurology residency). As a clinical professor of neurology, I greatly enjoy teaching and seeing patients with the neurology residents every month, and I hope that in some small way, I am honoring the gifts that were bestowed upon me as the recipient of a Wien scholarship at Brandeis from 1962-1966.
Brandeis became even more significant later in my life, when my daughter Gabrielle attended Brandeis following her junior year of high school, where she found a sense of community, connected with her historic roots, and had her bat mitzvah at Brandeis in 1998. She graduated from Brandeis in 1999, completed law school, and continues the tradition of service to the community by serving as a deputy prosecutor for King County in Seattle. My gratitude to Mr. Wien thus endures. Happy 50th anniversary to the Wien family and to all the Wien Scholars!
