Ubi Sunt

I have been saying to colleagues who ask about progress on "the book" that it should have been written 25 years ago. What I mean is that, had it been written in 1996 most of the original faculty and administration were still alive and could have added their stories to the effort. They would have made a much better book.

Now, most of the First Cohort of faculty have passed as have most of the administration. Out of the five deans and the first Vice-President for Academic Affairs only two are left. Of the four Presidents we have had since the Founding only two are left; the third President died a few months ago.

Trying to find those early Founders takes a great deal of time. Let me offer an example.

Actually, the first person hired to start the college -- even before the first President -- was James Judy. Jim came to Stockton from the Department of Higher Education (it, too, is no longer in Trenton) to assist the first Board of Trustees and, ultimately, to find and appoint the first President. Jim Judy was the first person I met when I came here to interview; he picked me up at the motel and transported me to the then office of the College. That office, by the way, was in a small strip-mall on Rt. 40 west of Atlantic City, NJ. It was next to a pet shop and all through the interview barking dogs and a howling monkey could be heard.

Jim was a pipe-smoking administrator; he was jovial, funny and had his feet on the ground. He was also a wonderfully effective expediter. I liked him instantly and, while we never became close friends, I think he liked me.

It was natural, then, when we started working on the book for me to suggest that I would try to find him to ask if he would write something on those early days and to invite him to the celebration when the book is launched. The problem was that no one I could find at Stockton had any idea where he was. I asked the President's staff to see if they could locate him. I asked First Cohort faculty if they had info on his location. I spent quite a few hours online searching for him; having worked on my family's geneaology for years, I knew what sorts of research materials were online and where. I still couldn't locate him.

Then, I happened to write the first President's assistant and asked him if he knew where Jim Judy went when he left the college on the late 1970s. He said he was fairly sure that he had gone to Thiel College in western Pennsylvania. I found their site online but Jim's name was not in their list of faculty and, surprisingly, I originally couldn't find any email addresses of present staff who might remember him. I finally did find an address for an administrator so I wrote her about Jim Judy's whereabouts.

After a few days, I got an answer: he had been an administrator at Thiel but hadn't worked there since the late 80s, she did have an email address and would forward my message to him. Great! He -- or someone in his family -- will respond, I thought, and the mystery will be solved. But I heard nothing as a few weeks passed.

It was at this point that I used the "Street View" of Google maps. Thiel College is in Greenville, PA and I had heard from someone that Jim ran a bike shop there called Judy's Bikes. Indeed, searching on that name I found the shop location and a phone number that, ominously, was not a working number.
Carefully manipulating the street view photos on the main street of Greenville I found the exact building where the bike shop had been but it was clearly empty. Another dead end!

That was where the search was left until, by accident, I was in the Graphic Arts office of the College and mentioned that I also had been trying to find contact info for the widow of the first President who I knew lived in the area. A secretary overheard my remark and said: "Oh, she is easy to find. I know her personally and will get her phone number for you." A door opened!

She did get her phone number and told me as well that she knew where Jim Judy was as well as another administrator's location I had been searching for. Ah, I thought: Jim is still alive -- as is the other administrator -- and I can get phone numbers and addresses. I will now be able to write them to ask them to write for the volume and we can celebrate their parts in founding the college. Wonderful!

I did get in touch with the widow of the President, she said that she had seen the other administrator as recently as last summer and that she was sure he would know where Jim was. I asked her to get whatever information she could and to call me when she had something I could follow-up with.

She called me today. The other administrator was still alive and she gave me his phone number. But, sadly, Jim Judy died in 2002 and his wife died in 2006! What information he could have shared with all of us about the very earliest days of the college before any administrators, staff or faculty had been hired! Lost -- totally gone.

This is true for many of those who came here for the opening in 1971. We would have their stories if we had celebrated the college's founding 25 years ago. But we didn't and we don't. Ubi Sunt.