[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 139 (Wednesday, October 7, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11693-S11694]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             EDWARD PFEIFER

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, recently a publication from St. Michael's 
College in Winooski Park, Colchester, VT, profiled Professor Edward 
Pfeifer. Dr. Pfeifer is referred to as ``Historian Ed Pfeifer, '43.'' I 
have always thought of Ed Pfeifer as the special mentor I had in 
college and the man who did so much to shape my thinking and my life 
after college.
  He was the kind of professor who not only helped you learn, but 
taught you to want to learn. He would find students he could mentor and 
introduce them to the joys of learning. Fortunately, I was one of those 
students and I have benefited from his help every day since.
  Ed and his wife, Joan, are now retired in Vermont. One of the great 
pleasures Marcelle and I have is when we end up in the same place with 
them, ranging from events at St. Michael's, to meeting in the grocery 
store near our own home in Vermont.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article from St. 
Michael's Founders Hall, September 1998, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

            [From St. Michael's Founders Hall, Sept., 1998]

                        Historian Ed Pfeifer '43

                            (By Buff Lindau)

       Nine-year old Eileen Gadue had to write an essay explaining 
     why she needed a new trunk to take her sneakers, swim suit, 
     tennis racket, and other belongings to summer camp. She 
     didn't know it, but she had Ed Pfeifer to thank.
       Eileen's parents, Mark and Marjorie Gadue '79, of 
     Colchester, Vt., were both students of SMC Emeritus Professor 
     of History Edward Pfeifer '43 in the 1970's. They have shaped 
     their lives and their children's lives on Pfeifer's patient 
     insistence on developing ideas, supporting those ideas, 
     researching to back them, and working carefully with language 
     to clarify and defend the ideas.
       After the fifth draft of her essay and repeated discussions 
     with Dad, Eileen got the new trunk.
       ``He taught us life skills and we teach our kids as we 
     learned from him,'' said Marjorie. ``He was someone who made 
     a real difference.'' All his students say that Dr. Pfeifer 
     taught reading, thinking, debating, clear defending of ideas, 
     and taught with a hard to define skill that included quiet 
     patience, kindness, and intellectual rigor.
       Mark Gadue graduated as a history major from Saint 
     Michael's in 1979 and almost headed to get his Ph.D., but 
     entered the family dry cleaning business instead.
       Pfeifer students Gary Kulik '67, Joseph Constance '76, 
     Francis MacDonnell '81, Gayle Brunelle '81, and Jonathan Bean 
     '84 were inspired to aim for the professorial ranks as a 
     result of their experience in Pfeifer's classroom. ``I took a 
     number of years off after college, but he influenced me to go 
     back to graduate school and I am ultimately following in his 
     footsteps,'' said Bean, who was unanimously voted in May to 
     receive early tenure as a history professor at Southern 
     Illinois University. Bean, who took at least 10 courses with 
     Pfeifer, models his teaching on Pfeifer's style of 
     methodically eliciting student response. Bean is the author 
     of Beyond the Broker State: Federal Policies Toward Small 
     Business, 1936-1961.
       Pfeifer says it was his goal to get a response from 
     students about the historical material they were studying, 
     ``something that was their own comment that reflected their 
     own evaluation.'' But the magic of Pfeifer as a teacher 
     resides in the method and manner he brought to the classroom 
     to get the students engaged, to elicit their response.
       To Fran MacDonnell, a teacher who earned his master's in 
     history at Marquette and his Ph.D. at Harvard, ``Dr. Pfeifer 
     is in the handful of teachers that you admire and like to 
     imitate and that you owe a lot to. ``He had three, one-year 
     appointments teaching history at Yale University, and now he 
     and his wife live in Lexington, Va., where she teaches and he 
     finishes his second book--a study of white southerners who 
     fought in the Union Army during the Civil War. (His first 
     book is titled Insidious Foes: The Axis Fifth Column and the 
     American Home Front.) ``I can think of no greater legacy than 
     the one Ed Pfeifer gave his students--I mean Professor 
     Pfeifer taught my dad'' (Dr. Kenneth MacDonnell '57 a Boston 
     physician), MacDonnell said. He gave his students the drive 
     to think independently, and confidence in expressing their 
     thoughts.
       Pfeifer was a master Socratic teacher, which meant using 
     the Q & A method to guide the student, leaving room for 
     different opinions and approaches and calling for 
     conclusions from the student. ``That is the hardest kind 
     of teaching, yet the one with the most rewards for the 
     student,'' MacDonnell said, who aspires to Pfeifer's 
     method.
       Joe Constance concurs, ``Dr. Pfeifer was probably the 
     finest practitioner of the Socratic method that you'll ever 
     find as a teacher--getting the student to arrive at the 
     answer,'' and encouraging you as you progressed. Constance 
     says Pfeifer also inspired him to pursue the intellectual 
     life; he earned a master's in history at UVM and a library 
     degree at SUNY Albany. Constance is now library director and 
     political science professor at St. Anselm College, and is 
     pursuing his Ph.D. in political science at Boston University.
       ``I asked Dr. Pfeifer a question in class one morning about 
     a trade agreement between Peru and Bolivia and he didn't know 
     the answer,'' Constance related. ``That afternoon I found a 
     note in my mailbox from him with the answer to the question--
     I've never been so impressed with a teacher before or 
     after.''
       Pfeifer's students all describe him as extremely kind and 
     concerned about them as individuals. They suggest that his 
     influence creeps up on you quietly and takes strong hold, 
     rather than hammering you. He was a model teacher and 
     scholar, one student said; fairness, balance, objectivity 
     characterized him. But there was humor--droll, quiet, dry--
     but a key element in his make-up that emerged unexpectedly.
       In 1986 Edward Pfeifer retired with his wife Joan Sheehey 
     Pfeifer to Cabot, Vt. He says he now has time to keep up with 
     his four children, chase after his grandchildren and mow lots 
     of grass. Because his teaching touched many who have gone on 
     to become teachers, Dr. Pfeifer's legacy multiplies beyond 
     his own classroom into the lives of students in university 
     classrooms from New Hampshire to Illinois to California. Ed's 
     son and daughter are graduates: John '85 and Justine '84 who 
     is married to Frank Landry '82. His brother, Charles '43 is 
     deceased.


                         edward pfeifer profile

       Pfeifer graduated from Saint Michael's in 1943 with a 
     degree in English, and served in WWII in the U.S. Navy, 1943-
     46. He earned a master's in American civilization from Brown 
     University in 1948 and then joined the SMC English 
     department. He served in the Navy during the Korean War, 
     1951-53, and returned to Brown in 1954, where he earned a

[[Page S11694]]

     Ph.D. in American Studies in 1957. Focusing on the history of 
     science he wrote a dissertation titled. The Reception of 
     Darwinism in the U.S.. 1859-1880. He rejoined the SMC history 
     department in 1956, and created the interdisciplinary 
     American studies major.
       Pfeifer was vice president for academic affairs and dean of 
     the College from 1969 to 1974, and was awarded the first SMC 
     faculty appreciation award ever given, in 1966. He received 
     the award again in 1967 and 1982. Pfeifer retired in 1986 and 
     the SMC yearbook was dedicated in his name, yearbook editor, 
     Linda Robitaille '86 said, ``He was kind to his students, he 
     awed us, he was remarkably concerned with helping us learn.''

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