This was the last year Dieter Rollfinke carried the ceremonial mace at Commencement, reserved for the faculty member with the longest tenure.

By Dieter Rollfinke

The baby boom following World War II led to tremendous expansion in American higher education in the mid-1960s that caused a great demand for college professors. After the Soviets launched their Sputnik satellite in 1957, colleges also sought to strengthen the natural sciences and foreign languages. Because of these factors, I received three offers for on-campus interviews for a full-time tenure track position in German in May 1964, even though I was 22 years old and only had a B.S. in economics (I had completed only my coursework for an M.A. in German at Columbia University). I accepted the offer from Dickinson College, a decision I have never regretted.

I came to Dickinson not at all certain that I wanted a teaching career, but I quickly fell in love with my job, since I received much good advice from my two senior colleagues in German, Herbert Royce and Marianna Bogojavlensky, and enjoyed the interaction with my students.

Considering Dickinson’s present reputation as a leader in the fields of foreign-language study and global education, it seems unbelievable that, for my first few years here, language study was not stressed. Most classes were taught in windowless classrooms in the basement of the Dickinson School of Law, while our offices were scattered all over campus. It was the dedicated, patient and unselfish leadership of Paul Angiolillo that molded the Department of Modern Languages into an active, inventive and cohesive group of men and women. Later, Arturo Fox led us as successfully, until the faculty became so large that the department was split into three departments.

Dickinson’s foreign-language programs really blossomed dramatically in the 1980s, after the college received a million-dollar National Endowment for the Humanities grant. For us in German this meant a mutually beneficial partnership with the University of Bremen and later the addition on campus of the Max Kade Center for the Study of Contemporary German Culture.

The Bremen connection enabled me to take students and colleagues several times to our center there. Most of these trips were invigorating but sometimes also exasperating. When my colleague, Wolfgang Müller, and I took the first group of Dickinson students to Bremen for a summer-immersion program in 1984, we rented a studio apartment for each student in a high-rise dorm-style building. Although we had warned all the students not to fool around with any electrical outlets unless they had a proper adapter, it took only about 10 minutes until one of our students attempted to plug the bare wires of his electric shaver into an outlet and promptly received a huge electric shock that blacked out the entire building. For several days we Americans received a rather frigid welcome in the neighborhood.

During my 40 years at Dickinson, I was able to teach and interact with almost 3,000 students. I particularly enjoyed freshman seminars and team-taught courses. The first time I shared the classroom with another professor turned out to be an unusually exciting teaching experience, from which I also learned a great deal: it was the groundbreaking, iconoclastic The Grotesque in German Art and Literature, which I taught with Joseph Hoffman in the early 1970s. Later, I team-taught several courses with Sharon Hirsh; the two of us occasionally switched roles to demonstrate to the students that an art historian could direct a discussion of a literary work, and a person trained to analyze literature could critique an artwork. Other colleagues with whom I had excellent team-teaching experiences included Peggy Garrett, Susan Nichols, Wolfgang Müller and Elke Durden.

It has been enormously satisfying to see the progress that has been made over the last four decades in the study of languages at Dickinson. One increasingly hears a myriad of languages spoken around the campus. And now language learning has become more than the acquisition of a skill—it is just plain fun! This was evident to my wife, Jackie, and me at this year’s “Dickinson World Cup,” a soccer competition organized by the German Club. It was very rewarding to see students from many different races and ethnic groups playing on the same team and to hear many different languages spoken ... the sort of easy, relaxed one-world ambiance that shows just how far we’ve come.

I leave Dickinson optimistic about the future of this great college. One of the most impressive traits of our graduates is that many have embraced the best values of a liberal-arts education. They are not merely interested in earning a lot of money but also possess strong social consciences and follow ethical standards. Thus Dickinson has a very high percentage of students who have served in the Peace Corps. Many of our graduates, no matter what their future careers will be, are committed to the betterment of humanity. They also do not shy away from criticizing their own government, when necessary.

I thank all my colleagues in German and the foreign languages, the administration and especially my former students for having made my years at Dickinson so memorable. Looking back, I recall Evelyn Schmaus ’78’s satirical one-act play, Waiting for Rollfinke, which depicted the frustrations of a student sitting in the vestibule outside my office and hearing over and over again, “Noch fünf Minuten (I’ll be with you in another five minutes).” From more recent years I remember fondly the efforts of a mature student, semi-retired engineer Herman Hanemann, to stimulate students to think by playing the devil’s advocate. I’ll never forget my “Böll fanatics,” Charles Breuninger ’77 and Mike Livingston ’95, whose independent studies about my favorite author were great brainstorming sessions. I could go on and on. I have seen my students grow in so many ways, and I will always think of them as true friends.

Finally, I extend thanks to my former student, Dickinson’s President Bill Durden ’71, for his dedicated and brilliant leadership, which has immensely enhanced the reputation of the college. I anticipate many years of attending lectures and other events on campus, continued contact with my former students, and watching Dickinson’s reputation continue to soar. •