Kenneth W. Stark

I had financial problems then, and CCNY was a school that I could afford. My sister-in-law had gone there, and she recommended me to try it. If I didn't go to CCNY, I probably would not have gone to college. What made the best impression on me was Professor McEwen. He was a professor of mathematics, and he taught mathematics in my sophomore year. I was taking calculus. My recollection of him was that the calculus I was taking was an integral calculus, and I had no concept of it. We were going by and I was not getting it. One day I went up to him and said, 'Professor McEwen, I'm not getting anything in your class. I don't get the concepts of it at all.' He said, 'Do you have a free period next period?' I said, 'Yeah, I got a free period.' He said, 'Let's go sit out in the hall.' He starts at the beginning with the basic fundamentals of calculus. He kept explaining it to me step by step and said, 'Are you getting this?' This went on for a couple of weeks. Then one day everything clicked. It just came to me. I told him, 'It's very clear, and I understand it completely.' He said, 'Here's my home phone number. If you ever have a problem, give me a call.' Subsequently I had problems. I called him up late at night, and he'd answer the phone. We talked about my math problems. I understood calculus so well that I wound up getting an A in the course that I probably would have flunked otherwise. He stood out in my mind. I had some good professors there, but he was the one that was really outstanding in the sense that he took me from scratch, where I knew nothing, to completely understanding calculus. He was really great. I've never forgotten him as he made such an impression on me.