My father’s dream, my life, my accomplishment

January through May of this year, 22 young adults called me Professor Quigley.

Thanks, Dad.

Some people might not understand the nod to my father, who died when I was 13. But it’s the right thank you, or at least the first thank you I should make for being able to step into a classroom at Rowan University for the second time and teach students about public relations, the field in which I have worked for almost 30 years.

Before I was born, before he knew whether I was a girl or a boy, before he knew if I would like school or do well in it, my father decided I was going to attend college.

This was in the late 1950s, and he — like my mother — was the child of immigrants. Neither of my parents had attended college. None of their four siblings had either. They came from a working class background. College, I’m sure, was a dream for my father, a big dream, one that somehow was a line, a major step that would set his child apart.

As it turned out, I loved school and did well. College was never not in my plans. I still remember the day my mother drove me to Glassboro High School, about three years after my dad died, to take the SATs for the first time. “You know, you don’t have to go to college if you don’t want to,” she said.

Not go? I wasn’t equipped to do anything but go. I applied to Villanova and Glassboro State (now Rowan University), was accepted at both and was offered scholarships to both. My father’s dream — much like his love of reading and photography — had become part of my life as well. I earned a bachelor’s degree in communication/journalism from GSC and started my career.

That career led me back to my alma mater, where 25 years after I earned my bachelor’s degree I received my master’s degree in writing. I always felt my father was a part of me earning that degree, and I hoped he was proud. I knew I owed him at least in part for that accomplishment.

Last year, I came to owe him more. The chair of Rowan’s Public Relations Department asked me to teach a four-night, one-credit graduate summer course on speechwriting as an adjunct professor. I was nervous; no, I was intimidated. I never saw myself as a natural teacher, but I said yes. As it turned out, I had a very small and very fabulous class of students whom I liked immensely and whom I learned with and from as well as taught. This year the department chair asked me to teach again, this time a full-semester undergraduate class more than five times larger than my first class. It was a struggle that forced me to put a lot of things on the backburner in my personal life, as I was prepping and grading during lunchtimes, evenings and weekends.

I found a satisfaction in teaching I never expected. I learned from my students: about public relations, about human nature and about myself. I’ll always be grateful for that.

I’ll also always see my teaching trailing back to my father and wonder if he knows that not only did I live his dream of attending college — twice — but that I actually got to teach at one. I doubt this is something he ever imagined, and I so hope he is proud. My father gave me a lot of gifts in the short time we had him, and college was just one of them. It’s one for which I am grateful.

So, thanks, Dad. And happy Father’s Day to all the men who help their children recognize and live their dreams.

Patricia Quigley is a freelance writer and a member of Incarnation Parish, Mantua.