2003 Teacher-Scholar Award Address

Dipak Haldar, Ph.D.
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Biological Sciences

Reverend President, Members of the Faculty and Administration, Fellow Honorees, students and honorable guests:

It is a genuine pleasure to be able to talk to you today.  

The St. Vincent de Paul Award has a special significance for me considering that I originally come from the other side of the world, India via England and Canada.  This level of recognition of a naturalized citizen can happen only in America.  I would like to thank the committee members for their selection, Dr. Anne Dranginis for the nomination and my students without whom I could not have done much research.

The initial part of my talk will describe my background and experience at St. John's.   Then I will talk about my views on how St. John's can make an impact on the academic world while upholding the Vincentian values and the Mission of the school.

I consider myself to be a very fortunate person, both in family and at work.  In my judgment, my parents were ideal.  My father was a high school teacher whose influence made me methodical and ambitious.  My mother has inculcated discipline in me.  I am also fortunate in having an excellent family, my wife who is also a professor at St. John's, my son, daughter and a daughter-in-law; I could not expect anything better than these individuals.  My three month old granddaughter is the latest joy.  Recently, all the four generations came together in our home.  I have come across many excellent teachers who influenced me tremendously.  One such professor, who taught me chemistry for a few weeks in 1953, gave me a piece of advice that had a major impact on my career.  He is in India; we talk from time to time over the phone. Other professors and colleagues helped me in learning how to be respectful to others and how to project my plans over a number of years.   I have a huge number of excellent colleagues, students and friends. 

My first few weeks at St. John's were somewhat traumatic.  Being trained outside the United States, I did not know what a "Term Paper" was; I had not seen "Multiple Choice" questions except for the test for getting my Driver License.  I got to teach a class of about 120 non-majors.   My then Chair told me "I would like you to give the students multiple choice, true-false and fill-in-the-blanks questions."  The concept of "true-false" truly gave me a lot of false apprehension.  In the place I came from, a teacher would never put anything false on a test.  I am sure St. Vincent would not have either. Times have changed; I have now learned the multiple choice way and can strike a good balance between the old and new ways. To make the situation worse, the then Dean visited my class fairly early in the semester.  The visitation was followed by what was supposed to be a discussion on my performance as an instructor; but what actually happened was virtually a two hour monolog that covered many aspects of teaching, research and the four F's that attract students - Faculty, Funds, Facilities and Fame.  After I survived the first administrative grill, I started feeling more and more comfortable at St. John's. 

Within a short time I set two goals.  First, to do both teaching and research.  Secondly, to do both of them well under the given situation.  Let me tell you at this point that it took me seven years to strike a balance between teaching and research.  Meanwhile, I was hearing and reading about the Vincentian motto - to help the less privileged, to work with those who did not follow the traditional path for education.

My first reward in teaching came at the end of my second semester when a non-major gave me a card after the final examination.  On the card it was written "Thank you for making me interested in a subject I was never interested in."  I was very much moved by this profound compliment.  But, unfortunately or fortunately, I soon started to teach the Bio majors who are always interested in Biology.  I must be doing a good job, because I have yet to receive a card that reads "Thank you for making me uninterested in a subject I was always interested in". 

How does one help those who have not followed the traditional path for education?  To me giving has been very important especially to those who can make good use of it.  In this regard, I can tell you a true story:

One day, this poor farmer, while trying to make a living for his family, heard a cry for help coming from a nearby swamp. He dropped his tools and ran to the swamp.  There, stuck to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. The farmer saved the boy from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

The next day, a fancy carriage pulled to the farmer's meager surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy the farmer had saved.

"I want to repay you," said the nobleman. "You saved my son's life."
"No, I can't accept payment for what I did", the farmer replied, waving off the offer.

At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hut.

"Is that your son?" the nobleman asked. "Yes," the farmer replied proudly.
"I'll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of life he will enjoy. If the boy is anything like his father, he'll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of." And that he did.

The farmer's son attended the very best schools and in time, he graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.

Years afterward, the same nobleman's son who was saved from the swamp was stricken with pneumonia. What saved his life this time? Penicillin.  Whose life was saved?  Winston Churchill's.

As we know from the Mission Statement, St. John's University is Catholic, Vincentian and Metropolitan and as a university we commit ourselves to academic excellence.  To me, being Catholic and Metropolitan is a given.  It is the Vincentian aspect of the Mission that we have to work on.   In this regard, one area in the Department of Biological Sciences is worth mentioning; that is the doctoral program.  We have been getting students who are not necessarily following the traditional path for their education.  When I came to St. John's, we had been getting students many of whom had experience as lab technicians or high school teachers.  In recent years, we have been getting a good many international students.  All these people need delicate nurturing to bring the best out of them.  And also, as it is the doctoral program, our aim has never been short of excellence.   In one of my earlier years at St. John's, in the early 80's, something happened one day that combined Vincentian values, a standard of excellence and delicate nurturing of the student.  He was a high school teacher working in my lab for his doctoral degree in odd hours.  We were trying to accomplish something that, at that time, was technically difficult.  Our repeated attempts were partially successful but were not meeting the standard of excellence.  One evening, at about 10:30, I got a call from him.  "Dr. Haldar", he said, "I got it"; his voice was full with emotion.  "I wish I can show it to you" he added.  "I will be there if you can stay for a few more minutes", I replied.  I saw the spectacular results of his experiment and we had a mini celebration.  We published the work in one of the top journals in the field.  He went back to his high school and started a chain reaction by organizing to send his students to the local research labs.  His students received many Intel and similar awards.  This former student of St. John's became a finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Math teaching and also New York State's Science Teacher of the Year in 1995.  Although some of my later students found professorship in some well-known universities, and one a directorship of a laboratory at the world renowned Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, I have always cherished this first inspirational episode of my research endeavor at St. John's.

'WE ARE ST. JOHN'S".  What does it mean?  It must mean different things to different people.  As a scientist, I attend national and international meetings one to three times a year.  Also, I am a traveler.  I have visited forty-four states including Hawaii and Alaska.  What have I heard about St. John's?   Two problems.  One is a minor problem related to our location. The address "Jamaica, New York" is frequently misleading and does not help us to project the "Metropolitan" character of the university. 

The second problem deals with what we do at St. John's.   Some put it directly: "I know St. John's.  You have a good basket ball team".  Others try to be sarcastic: "I can see you're doing good science.  But, what else does St. John's do other than playing basketball?"  When President Regan visited St. John's in the early 80's, he made many complimentary remarks about us   But, his starting quip was - he saw an exotic flower growing in Queens "Mulberry" - referring to Chris Mullen and Walter Berry.  There is absolutely nothing wrong in having a good basketball team in the school.  In fact, we are very proud of our basketball team.  They were ranked #1 in the nation on several occasions.  We are proud of our soccer team that won the national title only a few years back.  But, we are also proud of our academic performance that seems to be confined to the immediate vicinity of the school.  Two years ago, Dr. Louis Trombetta, in his St. Vincent de Paul lecture, referred to the Pharmacy curriculum as the nation's finest.  How many people know that?  We are very proud of our program in Biological Sciences with a respectable amount of government and non-government grants, publications in the topmost journals and alumni holding responsible positions in colleges, universities, industries and hospitals.  The drastic change for the better has occurred within the past fifteen to twenty years.  How many people know that?  We used to say "Our basketball is almost as good as our Biology".  But this Biological Sciences program is the best kept secret in town.  We have an excellent Clinical Psychology program.  We have opened the "Institute of Biotechnology".  How many people know that?  We have a very good law school.   We heard in the past about our law school when our graduates Cuomo and Deukmejian were governors in New York and California.  We were proud to produce governors from coast to coast.  Can we not build some of those impressive slogans based on our various academic strengths?  Of course, we can.  We have a solid undergraduate program - honors, service learning to name a few specialties.  St. John's has given a lot to this community. Every summer I see so many young kids on campus. If Vincentian values were a NCAA sport, we would have a lock on the final four.  From all indications university is committed to keeping up with the changing times. One example is the recent decision to have a state of the art wireless network that will serve the needs of students and faculty alike.  But we need similar commitments in other areas.  We should focus on enhancing our academic reputation, which depends mostly on it graduate programs, research output and its alumni. We have to make our academic strengths known.  And we have to hold on to those strengths and try to strengthen them further.  I am sure this is applicable to many academic departments in the school.  But, I will confine myself to Biological Sciences and perhaps extend it to life sciences that may include Pharmacy and Psychology.  We are witnessing a very rapid change in the methods applied in research.  It is comparable to the rapid changes that are taking place in Information Technology.  How do we keep up?  The faculty can be encouraged to go to spend a research leave in a dynamic laboratory.  Here we can surely use our "Metropolitan" character to our advantage because there are many first rate life sciences departments present in New York City. In the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, some professors are paid to research on innovative ways to strike a balance between teaching and research.  Some of our professors can kill two birds with one stone by joining these enterprises.  Secondly, we have to get new faculty members who are on top of the tricks of the trade.  If we do not take these approaches, in all likelihood, we will miss the boat and will have programs that are mediocre at best.

There are other avenues to make ourselves visible in the backdrop of the world famous institutes in New York metropolitan area.  For example, in a recent issue of "Science" magazine, we see some professors in Cambridge University have gone out to local cafeterias and engaged themselves in educating the local people about contemporary health problems like AIDS or SARS.  Interestingly, people are listening to them.  This approach has not yet been adopted in the USA except a little bit in Boston area.  So, here is my specific outreach proposal.  St. John's University can sponsor a community enrichment program where our professors can present in public places contemporary health topics or some aspects of what is becoming general knowledge.  The key is to "pick a subject that is a bit controversial and sexy".  This way we not only reach for the community people but also make them informed citizens.

In summary, I am suggesting that we should maintain our athletic programs at least in the way they are.  We are not involved with all the sports under the sun.  Similarly, we should also make some of our academic programs stronger so that they become world class.  We need to inform the world about our programs.  Then shouting out "WE ARE ST. JOHN'S" will be much more satisfactory.  I am sure, if we try, we will be blessed by St. Vincent de Paul. 

Thank you.