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[ambitious_wench]

College President, 61, Again a Freshman
Nov 28, 6:19 PM (ET)

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - In his first weeks as a freshman at St. John's College, Roger "Rusty" Martin missed two days of crew practice. He feared the coach might cut him from the team, but he had legitimate reasons: CT scans and a checkup with his oncologist.

The 61-year-old was four years removed from a battle with melanoma that nearly killed him.

Martin, the president of Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., is the oldest freshman at St. John's - by four decades. Some on the faculty are young enough to have been his students back when he was a history professor.

Martin went back to school this year because he wanted to study the freshman experience in a way that would be impossible from the president's office. So he took a semester-long sabbatical from the top of the academic food chain to dwell at the bottom.

Martin didn't hide his identity from the students and faculty at St. John's. He and college administrators agreed that Martin would attend classes and events but would live off campus, with his wife and dog. He would take notes in class, but he wouldn't speak.

Martin, a lifelong educator trained to lecture, worried he might upset the balance of St. John's painstakingly egalitarian seminars if he spoke.

"He wanted to see the freshmen up close, and kind of be in the milieu, and see what effect reading and studying those things has on the way they talk with each other and the way they think about life," St. John's Dean Harvey Flaumenhaft said.

Thus far, Martin said he has found his fellow freshmen to be strikingly focused, keen to study, averse to drugs, loyal to their parents and quite serious about politics and faith.

And he seems to fit in well with other students.

The oldest freshman sits and chats about crew practice with fellow rowers until class starts. Then, he sits and listens.

"He pretty much immediately fit in," said David Miranda, 19, a St. John's freshman who rowed with Martin. "Sometimes we'd talk about Plato, and sometimes we'd just talk about things that are going on day to day."

Comments

[sebastianm.livejournal.com]

I think if he really wants the first-year experience, he should live in the dorms. Studying and classes are only two small parts of the college experience.

Then again, he probably wouldn't want to live like an 18-year-old again.

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I've been considering living in the dorms as well, but what stops me is the fact that I have a dog and two cats. Not condusive to living in a dorm. Besides, I think his wife would have something to say about it.

When I was in the navy, my husband and I lived together illegally in the barracks with a wink from the barracks manager. I was due to ship out shortly after the ceremony.

I've never lived in a college dorm, but I have lived in a dorm for highschool, and of course the Navy barracks are very dorm-like.

I remember the navy dorms were loud, and partying was the focus. The culture isn't that different from college, I think, but at least in college you have others around you who also were trying to study, and so partying wouldn't be as tolerated as in the barracks.

Edie