Now, Mina P. Shaughnessy (1924-1978) of the City College of the City University of New York read my 1974 article "Open Admissions, Orality, and Literacy." She then single-handedly arranged to have me invited to teach English at the City College/CUNY in 1975-1976 - which turned out to be the most memorable year of my life.
You see, at the time, the multi-campus City University of New York was engaged in an expensive and controversial experiment with open admissions. Because New York City was then and still is now the center of news media in the United States, the expensive and controversial experiment with open admissions was rather well publicized at the time. The famous City College/CUNY was the flagship campus of the multi-campus CUNY, and so much of the publicity about CUNY's expensive and controversial experiment with open admissions centered on the City College/CUNY. In any event, CUNY's expensive experiment contributed to bankrupting the City of New York in 1976. We did not receive our May 1976 paychecks - until many years later when New York City was recovering from its 1976 bankruptcy.
Of course, July 4, 1976, was the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence - and today we Americans are now looking forward to July 4, 2026, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence under President Donald Trump. In any event, on July 4, 1976, I walked from my apartment in the then-new Chelsea Mews Apartment Building in lower Manhattan over to the Hudson River and stood on the banks and watched the Tall Ships sail up and down the Hudson. Yes, they were a memorable sight to see - during the most memorable year of my life. (I was born on March 17, 1944, in a hospital that overlooks the Hudson River - in Ossining, New York, my father's hometown. However, when I was born, my father was in the U.S. Army and was stationed in dover, England, as part of the build of troops for the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France. I was eighteen months old when my father returned from World War II to Ossining.)
On July 4, 1976, I was writing what would become my article "Literacy, the Basics, and All That Jazz" in College English, volume 38 (1976-1977): pp. 443-459.
Yes, I had seen Bob Fosse's 1975 Broadway musical Chicago, starring Jerry Orbach as Billy Flynn, and I had heard Chita Rivera and company sing the clever song "All That Jazz."
As it turned out, Jerry Orbach lived in the brownstone directly across the street from my apartment in the then-new Chelsea Mews Apartment Building, and I met him one evening as he was coming out of the underground parking garage on our street. I recognized him and greeted him. I told him that I had enjoyed his performance in the Broadway musical Chicago.
Now, in response to my article "Literacy, the Basics, and All That Jazz" (1976-1977), Ong published his most widely reprinted article "Literacy and Orality in Our Times" in the ADE Bulletin: A Journal for Administrators of Departments of English in American Colleges and Universities, Serial Number 58 (September 1978): pp. 1-7. (ADE is a subset of the Modern Language Association of America (MLA). In 1978, Ong served as the elected president of MLA.)
Both my article "Literacy, the Basics, and All That Jazz" (1976-1977) and Ong's article "Literacy and Orality in Our Times" (1978) are reprinted in A Sourcebook for Basic Writing Teachers, edited by Theresa Enos (Random House, 1987, pp. 27-44 and 45-55, respectively).
Ong's article "Literacy and Orality in Our Times" is also reprinted in An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Hampton Press, 2002, pp. 465-478).
As you may imagine, Ong's publication of his article "Literacy and Orality in Our Times" further strengthened my already ardent admiration of Ong and his work.
In any event, Mina P. Shaughnessy published her book Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing (Oxford University Press) in 1977.
For further information about Mina P. Shaughnessy, see Jane Maher's biography Mina P. Shaughnessy: Her Life and Work (National Council of Teachers of English, 1997).
Now, Theodore L. Gross (1931-2022) was the dean at the City College/CUNY who hired me to teach English there in 1975-1976. He subsequently published the book Academic Turmoil: The Reality and Promise of Open Education (Anchor Press/ Doubleday, 1980).
For a retrospective look at the expensive experiment with open admissions at the City College/CUNY, see James Traub's book City on a Hill: Testing the American Dream at City College (A William Patrick Book/ Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1994).
Now, I now interpret my mental breakdown in late February 1974 as involving what Robert Moore refers to as The Detached Manipulator "shadow" form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype of maturity in my psyche as my psyche's way of signaling me (my ego-consciousness) that the time had come for me to learn to accessing the optimal and positive form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype of maturity in my psyche. And yes, I now see the archetypal Self in my psyche as involved, and indeed as instrumental, in my mental breakdown and my subsequent accessing the optimal and positive form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in my psyche through my various professional publications, most of which involve the work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter Jackson Ong, Jr. (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University, the Jesuit university in the City of St. Louis, Missouri (USA), where, over the years, I took five courses from him.
I have surveyed Ong's life and eleven of his books and selected articles in my award-winning book Walter Ong's Contributions to Cultural Studies: The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication (Hampton Press, 2000). My book received the Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the field of Media Ecology, conferred by the Media Ecology Association on June 15, 2001. I have framed that award and have it on display in my home in Duluth, Minnesota.
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