When I transferred to Evansville College, now known as University of Evansville, in the spring of 1952 I had completed practically all of my required credits for graduation so my courses were basically biology and a course in physics. Because I was so close to finishing, the Professor of Microbiology made me a student lab instructor for his courses.
One of the classes consisted of student nurses from a local hospital.
On the first day of lab, I introduced myself and began giving a lecture on the lab and certain rules and procedures I expected to be followed. I began “ if you young ladies will now pull open your drawers and look……” right then I realized what I had asked these 40 some young women to do and started cracking up. You can imagine I got no respect that quarter from that class of nurses. It was probably worse since they were all white and I was Black but what the heck nothing ever came of it.
The Chairmen of the department was truly a character who not only loved to teach but was a gourmand who invited his favorite students monthly to exotic dinners at his home. That is where I had my first taste of escargots and steak tartare’ also, chocolate covered grasshoppers and crème brule’ .Dr Dunham never had a student that he wrote a recommendation for ever not accepted at Indiana University School of Medicine. I was one of those that kept his record spotless. In fact, when I went for my interview they told me right at the time I was accepted while some applicants from other schools had to await their fate by mail. Remember, I was the only Black in the Biology Department and there were only a hand- full of us in the school in general. So one thing I have always maintained was that Dr Dunham was fair.
One interesting event happened in my senior year. During the summer session we got a call from the local zoo that a tiger had died and did we have any use for it. Another lab assistant and I drove out to the zoo to take a look. We didn’t know what to expect so we took a dissecting kit with some large knives to see if we could skin it and display the hide.
What we saw on arrival was a dead tiger that was so old that his fur looked like a moth eaten blanket and the only thing resembling the tiger that it was, was the head. We puzzled what could we do so we decided to cut off the head and take it back to school and see if we could figure how to preserve the skull. First we skinned it and then put it in a large ceramic lab crock and boil the flesh off, which took several days. We couldn’t get all of the cavities as clean as we wanted so we took it up on the roof of the science building and laid it out on a tarp in the sun so the flies could lay maggots on it to eat the flesh, remember we were biology majors . After about 4 weeks, it was pretty much cleaned out and we then boiled it in bleach and put back in the sun. What we got for all our effort was an old tiger head that I think may still sit in a display case somewhere showing a gaping mouth of broken, rotted and missing teeth in fearsome snarl . Other than the graduation ceremony which I remember because my little brother graduated from kindergarten that same day I have a picture of us both in our cap and gown, Evansville College is a distant memory of a stepping stone in my life.
One of the classes consisted of student nurses from a local hospital.
On the first day of lab, I introduced myself and began giving a lecture on the lab and certain rules and procedures I expected to be followed. I began “ if you young ladies will now pull open your drawers and look……” right then I realized what I had asked these 40 some young women to do and started cracking up. You can imagine I got no respect that quarter from that class of nurses. It was probably worse since they were all white and I was Black but what the heck nothing ever came of it.
The Chairmen of the department was truly a character who not only loved to teach but was a gourmand who invited his favorite students monthly to exotic dinners at his home. That is where I had my first taste of escargots and steak tartare’ also, chocolate covered grasshoppers and crème brule’ .Dr Dunham never had a student that he wrote a recommendation for ever not accepted at Indiana University School of Medicine. I was one of those that kept his record spotless. In fact, when I went for my interview they told me right at the time I was accepted while some applicants from other schools had to await their fate by mail. Remember, I was the only Black in the Biology Department and there were only a hand- full of us in the school in general. So one thing I have always maintained was that Dr Dunham was fair.
One interesting event happened in my senior year. During the summer session we got a call from the local zoo that a tiger had died and did we have any use for it. Another lab assistant and I drove out to the zoo to take a look. We didn’t know what to expect so we took a dissecting kit with some large knives to see if we could skin it and display the hide.
What we saw on arrival was a dead tiger that was so old that his fur looked like a moth eaten blanket and the only thing resembling the tiger that it was, was the head. We puzzled what could we do so we decided to cut off the head and take it back to school and see if we could figure how to preserve the skull. First we skinned it and then put it in a large ceramic lab crock and boil the flesh off, which took several days. We couldn’t get all of the cavities as clean as we wanted so we took it up on the roof of the science building and laid it out on a tarp in the sun so the flies could lay maggots on it to eat the flesh, remember we were biology majors . After about 4 weeks, it was pretty much cleaned out and we then boiled it in bleach and put back in the sun. What we got for all our effort was an old tiger head that I think may still sit in a display case somewhere showing a gaping mouth of broken, rotted and missing teeth in fearsome snarl . Other than the graduation ceremony which I remember because my little brother graduated from kindergarten that same day I have a picture of us both in our cap and gown, Evansville College is a distant memory of a stepping stone in my life.
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