Assembly on Literature for Adolescents Loses a Pioneer

ALAN Review, Winter 2004 by Broz, Bill

At the end of his account, Albom wrote, "Have you ever really had a teacher? One who saw you as a raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine? If you are lucky enough to find your way to such teachers, you will always find your way back. The teaching goes on." Effective mentors also inspire their protegees to move beyond their mentors' circles and, in doing so, to affect the future in profound ways.

Through his students and, now, their students as well, Bob Carlsen's teaching will continue.

The Extra Mile

by Alleen Pace Nilsen

Arizona State University

Ph.D. University of Iowa, 1973

Lucky stars were shining on me in 1971 when I applied for graduate admission to the University of Iowa. My husband had finished his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan and had taken his first "real" job at UNI in Cedar Falls. We always said it would be "my turn," when Don finished, but now we were going to a school located more than ninety miles from the nearest doctoral program, plus we had three young children (one a diabetic) to worry about. The whole thing looked impossible, but I decided to apply anyway. I knew nothing about Bob, nor about adolescent literature, although I had been teaching children's literature as a faculty associate at Eastern Michigan in Ypsilanti. When I was deciding whether or not to apply, I remember thinking that if I were one of Richard Nixon's "White House" daughters, someone would figure out how I could do this. That someone turned out to be Bob Carlsen. He let me work as a grad assistant while still living in Cedar Falls, and before I ever took a "live" class at the University of Iowa, I took adolescent literature from Bob via correspondence. This was when I learned how hard people in Iowa work and that I, too, could write more than a page a day. But no matter how fast or how much I wrote, Bob would get it back to me within a couple of days. Sometimes he wrote more than I did, and for years I cherished the lesson on which he had casually noted, "Someday I think you will write a book on adolescent literature." Whenever I find myself frustrated by the expectations of my own doctoral students or the need for more work on their dissertations, I think back to Bob and Ruth and remember how they picked me up at the airport and let me stay at their house when I flew in from Arizona to defend my dissertation. This kindness was only one more indication of their unselfishness and their willingness to go the extra mile for those of us fortunate enough to have been his students.

Opening Career Doors

by Ken Donelson

Arizona State University, Emeritus

Ph.D. University of Iowa, 1963

My first encounter with Bob Carlsen was hardly auspicious. He had been invited by someone important-so I gathered-to talk to us English teachers at Thomas Jefferson High School in Cedar Rapids and to help us improve our teaching. Since the English faculty was deservedly proud of our reputation, locally and otherwise, and since Thoreau had taught me to doubt anyone who deliberately came to do me good, Bob faced a cynical and slightly hostile audience of me-and several of my friends.