Peter McGuire
My story
After leaving LaSalle I joined many of our classmates at Providence College. Graduating from PC in 1965 with a commission as an army infantry lieutenant, I spent a year as a rifle platoon leader with the 7th Infantry Division in Korea before joining some of our classmates in Vietnam where I spent a year in the field with a mechanized infantry battalion.
Out of the army and back in Providence, I completed a Ph.D. at Brown and joined the faculty of Georgia Tech where I spent the next 35 years, retiring in 2008 as Professor and Associate Dean. Then, with both our sons grown and settled in life, my wife and I joined the Peace Corps and spent 30 months in Ukraine where I served as a visiting professor at Ukraine’s National Aerospace University. Undergraduate lectures there were in Russian, and my students were fascinated with the range of indignities I managed to inflict on their language. (During senior year at LaSalle, I promised God that if He convinced Father Hogan to pass me in Latin, I would never attempt another language. I’ve had to break that promise a number of times, each time with disastrous results.)
Now permanently in Atlanta, I’m spending my time tutoring immigrant high school students, working with the homeless and still finding lots of time to visit our children and grandchildren.
The 60th reunion brought back my memories of Brothers Leo and Andrew who made history exciting and meaningful, Brother William who taught me how to think like a scientist, Brother Eugene who taught me how to write, and Father Hogan who passed me with a wholly undeserved “B” in 4th year Latin. Having spent all of my adult life in the classroom, I know how hard it is to teach, and I feel a great debt to those priests and brothers who did it so superbly well.
Peter McGuire <pm@gatech.edu>
Atlanta, Georgia USA - Monday, November 08, 2021 at 11:07:39 (EST)