In 1966 when I was an officer in the Coast Survey working out of Woods Hole on the survey ship Whiting, I asked Columbus Iselin, the director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), about graduate schools. He recommended that I talk to John Knauss, the new Dean of the Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) at the University of Rhode Island and an excellent physical oceanographer. My father who happened to be visiting the east coast at the time of my visit to URI joined me and talked through most of my interview with John (to my mortification). At one point John replied to one of my father’s questions, “You know, I don’t think a graduate degree in oceanography will hurt Phil’s career.” John later told me that I was the only student who had ever brought along a parent to an interview. Perhaps in spite of this inauspicious start I was eventually accepted to work with John.

Richardson, P. 2001. Vignette. Oceanography 14(2):26, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2001.38.

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