December 2020

December 2020
Guy Stern

(BA, Fine Arts, ’48; HND, ’98)

Q & A:

• What was your favorite class, who was your favorite professor, or what is your fondest memory of Hofstra?
  My major was romance languages. My favorite professor is a tie between Dean Beckwith (French Literature), and Constant van de Wall (Fine Arts). My fondest memory is being feature editor of The Hofstra Chronicle, and later getting an honorary doctorate from Hofstra.
• What was your first job after graduating from Hofstra, and what was the most valuable thing learned in that position?
  I held a “real job” as a part-time waiter at the Broadway Lobster Pond in Manhattan. My most important lesson of that time was to gain insight into a different group of fellow Americans. I am a proud lifelong member of the “defunct waiters union.”
• What is your field of specialty, and how did you come to work in the industry?
  I went on to graduate school at Columbia, obtained my PhD in February 1954, and was helped greatly by the GI Bill of Rights. Columbia gave me the background I would need throughout my career as a Distinguished Professor in Literature; in short, I acquired a competence in German and comparative literature and at the same time the necessary teaching and leadership skills. My first position was at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, as assistant professor.
• What advice would you give Hofstra students?
  My advice to students is what I have tried to practice myself. Learn to think on your own!
• In one word, how would you describe Hofstra?
  Excellent faculty, strict – but understanding!
• What was the driving force for publishing your autobiography, Invisible Ink, at the age of 98?
  As sole survivor of the Holocaust within my whole family, I wanted to show that I tried to honor my murdered parents, brother, and sister. Since I am still “gainfully” employed as director of the International Institute of the Righteous at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Greater Detroit, it was not so easy to make time for it before.
• Having been a professor for 68 years, what is the single most rewarding experience in your career thus far?
  My answer to this is twofold:
  (1) To see my graduate students succeed in the same profession and turn to the same specialties of exile studies.
  (2) During World War II, to help in the U.S. war effort and to be rewarded with the Bronze Star and the Medal of the French Legion of Honor.
• Who was the person who most influenced you, and how?
  My life has been so long that I have to credit more than one person: My mother with her sensitivity and sense of humor, our synagogue’s cantor and youth leader in my hometown of Hildesheim, Seppl Cysner, who both strengthened my abilities and readily forgave my flaws. They nourished my love of literature and music and modeled for me ethical behavior. Also many of my teachers and professors, and my fellow students, saving me from becoming a nerd. And last but certainly not least my wife, Susanna.