Learning to Listen

Dr. Allen Menlo of SOE was an advisor in West Quad, where I lived. I got into some academic difficulty and he was especially helpful to me. As an elective in my teaching certificate program I took a course he taught in adult education. I received my teacher certification from SOE and an AB in English from LSA in 1963.

In 1964 I received an AM in Guidance and Counseling. Technically it was from Rackham, but it was a program in SOE under the great leadership of Dr. Edward Roeber. I worked as an English teacher and high school counselor in the Cherry Hill School District for three years.

I began thinking that I might wish to get a law degree and decided to take the LSAT. I did very well and believe this was, in part, because my training as a counselor gave an understanding of standardized tests and how they were constructed and scored. I received a JD from the Michigan Law School in 1969.

I worked as a trial lawyer from 1969 to 1985 in Muskegon and Battle Creek, Michigan. The listening skills I learned from Dr. Roeber and his colleagues were very helpful to me as a trial lawyer. First of all, attorneys need to listen very carefully to their clients to be sure they understand their story. Also, many attorneys fail to listen to the answers they are getting from witnesses they are examining. Instead of listening to the current answer they are thinking ahead to the next question they plan to ask. The counseling program taught us specifically to avoid this habit. 

I was the Director of the Michigan Bureau of Workers’ Compensation from 1985 to 1990. During that time, we sponsored research that demonstrated there were policies employers could adopt that would both lower their workers’ compensation cost and help workers.

From 1991 to 2008 I was on the faculty of the School of Labor and Industrial Relations at Michigan State University. I did research and taught some courses in the master's program, but I mostly taught non-credit courses for unions and employers. I developed a highly successful program in which we taught employers how to manage workers’ compensation. It helped workers deal with difficult situations, saved money for employers, and provided some income to my department at MSU. In designing and teaching that program I relied on many of the things I had learned in Al Menlo’s adult education class. (I was fortunate during my time at MSU to have an opportunity to contact Dr. Menlo and express my appreciation for what he taught me.)

My wife, Rosemary, and I now live in a retirement community in Evanston, Illinois. I sometimes organize activities for the residents here and once again rely on skills I learned at SOE.

I have had a varied career but I started out as a teacher and ended up as one. (Rosemary says that I was 50 when I figured up what I wanted to do when I grew up.) This was made possible by the many great opportunities I have had. One of the most valuable has been my education at the University of Michigan and especially in the School of Education.