My liberal education at UNH shaped my view of the world

To The Daily Sun,

Steve Earle has trouble with my name. Rudmin comes from Lithuania and is so old that an Iron Age hill fort there is known as Rudamina Hill Fort — the Iron Age being between 1200 and 600 B.C. Senator Warren Rudman and I are likely related way back, as his line also is from Lithuania. Chong (and variations) is the 2nd commonest surname in the world; I have it by my first marriage.

I’m considering how college/university experiences shaped me to be the liberal I am — all that reading! The four years of courses and classroom lectures picked up where my high school education — but a wee start — left off. As a freshman at UNH, in Prof. Bobick’s sociology class, my eyes opened wide at the idea of planned obsolescence. I remember where I wrote that on my notebook page. In a course with Carleton Menge, I read Betty Frieden’s "Feminine Mystique." When my art history professor, Jim Fasanelli, showed movies he thought we should see, renting the reels with his own money, I saw "La Guerre Est Fini." At the downtown Durham theater I saw "Umbrellas of Cherbourg." Painter/Professor John Hatch took us on field trips to Maine’s coast. My one woman teacher, an Australian with perky accent, taught a phys-ed class wherein I learned to stand on my hands, have the courage to let go of ground and trust hands!

The widest reading happened to me, including Karl Marx, including Machiavelli, including William Faulkner, including Herman Melville, including woman writers Carson McCullers and Virginia Woolf. So many more. Including textbooks in biology and period English-Lit courses. I wrote many papers based on my reading. I still admire the love of humanity in William Wordsworth's poem, "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge." Photography was a wonderful hands-on course.

What happened to me can be called “mind-broadening.” I have two brothers who graduated from Bowdoin College, different years. Floyd, a year younger than I am, turns out very progressive as an adult. Jerry, six years younger than I am, turns out very conservative as an adult. Jerry voted for Trump and stands by that choice.

Just thinking about it all — the Steve Earle letter gives me opportunity to linger on thoughts of my education that shape me as liberal/progressive. I like people and aim to understand differences when I can. I understand the Southerners in my life better, for having read Faulkner and McCullers. I’ve read almost all that Paul Theroux writes, world traveler sharing his experience. Broadening. I just finished reading U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s new biography, First. Now I’m reading a lot on Teddy Roosevelt. Broadening becomes a lifelong situation, as I read and read, including newspapers. I write letters to the papers when I feel I must. My university education was in the liberal arts. Hooray.

Lynn Rudmin Chong

Sanbornton