Last weekend, Ginny and I attended many of the festivities surrounding the Saturday inauguration of Dr. Judy Robinson Rogers as Cottey College's eleventh president.

From time to time, when one of the College's old-timers told me, "We're glad you came today," I felt like saying, "Did you think you could keep me away?"

When I think about it, my 31-year experience teaching at Cottey has been the core of my life so far. My 26-year life in New York, of which I speak so fondly, was only a preparation for it.

The College to which Dr. Rogers has come is far different from the one that met her predecessor Helen Washburn. Two decades ago, a faculty union, meant to unite the faculty against unfair treatment by the administration, in actuality was tearing it apart. In a setting where cooperation should have been as natural as breathing, there was none. Small groups of faculty stuck together and made a point of bad-mouthing members of other small groups. I once saw a non-union physics teacher physically trembling at the prospect of meeting union members in the faculty lounge. I think that what Helen Washburn did to bring Cottey's teachers back together was to invest faculty committees with her trust and with real power, not just the nominal power that might satisfy North Central Accrediting Agency when it came to town.

She inaugurated awards for teaching excellence. Somewhere, Wordsworth wrote that a love of nature is never betrayed. By the same token, I'd say that a trust in teachers is never betrayed.

Thirty plus years ago, Evelyn Milam was evidently hired to balance the budget and upgrade the Cottey faculty, a tough charge in any event. With a Ph.D., I stood on the sidelines and watched, as faculty friends without one were driven off campus. There was emotional damage done to everyone.

I was convinced that a terminal degree is no guarantee of teaching excellence, and I couldn't understand why fine teachers like Gary Winton and Forster Day couldn't sit down with the administration and board of trustees and work out some mutually acceptable solution. I couldn't understand how anyone could be so hidebound as to think a degree -- which is, after all, just a piece of parchment -- is a sure sign of teaching excellence. When I confronted the Dean on behalf of these faculty, he said the Cottey board of trustees had agreed on requiring the terminal degree in their respective fields from all Cottey teachers. That meant that, if, for some reason, Irving Howe, one of my best, most inspiring, teachers in graduate school at Hunter, were to want to teach English at Cottey, he would be turned down because he didn't have the necessary degree.

No matter that he had written universally respected critical studies of Faulkner and Thomas Hardy; no matter that he was the editor of the political Dissent, no matter that he had written the prize-winning best seller World of our Fathers, about the New York culture the Jewish immigrants had made.

No, I was told, the Ph.D. was something students' parents looked for when deciding on a college to send their daughters to. I disagreed then. I disagree now.

I don't think parents are that blind. Teaching excellence transcends degrees. You can't, I think, learn it. It's a gift.

Dr. Rogers inherits a remarkable faculty. May she have the gift to know how to get the most out of it.

Helen Washburn used to call Cottey "the academic world's best-kept secret." True enough. I've met alert and educated people from as close as Joplin who've never heard of it. I failed to understand why, and came to believe it was perhaps because the PEO's, who do, after all, own and operate the College, preferred their own way of recruiting students. Could they object to marketing Cottey in the public media, like toothpaste? The year of Cottey's centennial, 1984, its enrollment was 370, suddenly twenty more than the official capacity. Was there a cause-effect relation between the centennial and the bumper crop of students? Who knew? In any event, while administrators rejoiced, students crowded aggravatingly against each other in dorm rooms that were not designed for even such mild crowding. The following year, enrollment slumped seriously, and it took a couple of years for it to return to its normal capacity of 350.

In her inaugural address on Saturday, Dr. Rogers envisioned a student body of 500. For years, Cottey administrators have been speaking of student bodies of 500, and more. I believe Dr. Dow imagined 1000. And, with the addition of a new dormitory or two, that's a workable goal for Cottey. But, personally, I'd like for there to be a yearly pool of 500 or more applicants, from which the admissions people could choose a student body of 350 truly excellent students.

Admitting students purely for the sake of filling the house is bound to backfire and demoralize the faculty.

My 30-year experience teaching at Cottey showed me that one excellent student may not bring the academic quality of a class up to her level, but one poor student almost inevitably reduces the academic level . Size alone does not signify an excellent college. Optimal student quality versus the requirement of a budget that depends largely on enrollment will be a issue perennial for Dr. Rogers.

As one of the three faculty members who served on the presidential search committee that found Helen Washburn, I was immensely proud of her day-to-day performance for nearly two decades. She was fun to track in her skillful but genial working with students, with her board of trustees, with her faculty.

You could tell she really likes people. In looking for a College president, we were told by our ad hoc "head hunter" Dr. Ron Stead, that search committees always look for the personal qualities they found lacking in the person they're trying to replace.

Not being privy to the meetings of this search committee, I have no idea what qualities they were looking for -- and found -- in Dr. Judy Robinson Rogers. But, from watching how she carried herself before her large and varied inaugural audience on Saturday morning, I'd say they chose well; a good fit for this unique little college called Cottey.