George Palmer

I first met George Palmer, nearly fifteen years ago, when I came to Ann Arbor to discuss the possibility of joining the faculty. The chairman of the Personnel Committee had scheduled the customary round of informal meetings with small groups of faculty members. As I recall, the first two of these meetings were marked by a certain awkwardness that I have since learned is common when faculties are interviewing someone already in teaching. The participants all understand that the object of such meetings is to permit judgments to be made about one another's intellectual qualities; yet, a certain delicacy, generally absent when the prospective faculty member is not yet in teaching, leads everyone to avoid the appearance that anyone is being tested.