Page Ten

SCARLET AND BLACK

Friday, November 7. W67

 

Bridging the Gap: College Man at 42

By Steve Otto

Poker»faced and shivering, a
gathering of Englishmen stared
up at their honorable mayor,
Thomas Middleton, who had
come 10 give a speech at the
cold, rainy dedication cere-
mony of a newlyrbuilt school-
house. At one corner of the
structure, someone had chipped
out the date: 1651.

Middleton’s eloquence didn’t
stir in a n y hearts that
day, but he uttered one line
that struck a note of immore
tality in the townspeople's reds
dening ears: “A man is never
too old to learn!"

Evidence that this maxim is
just as true today as it was
in 1651 can be found at the
Grinnell College physics work-
shop.

There, peering out from be-
hind a network of multicolored
wires and tubes, 'is the face of
Charles Fierce. Pierce, at 42,
is one of the few men of the
age who has successfully
bridged the generation gap
without the aid of a heard or
long hair. His formula: “Be-
come a student!” And as a
Grinnell College student, he
attends six hours of class a
week and holds down a full“
time job as the college‘s phys-
ics technician. With a flair for
reading schematics diagrams
and explanatory notes from
college professors, he fits right
in.

Born and raised near Brook-
lyn, Iowa, Pierce comes from
a “family of large families” as
he puts it He has five sisters
and one brother, “None of us
strayed very far from home,”
he says. “My brother, who
lives farther away than the
rest of us, resides in Kellogg."

Pierce’s mother has 29 grand-
children, and seven of them
belong to Pierce. His children
are Marcia, 15, Sheri, 14, Ste-
ven, 12, Rodney, 10, Jon, 6,
Curtis, 3, and Jodi, almost 2.
As if seven children weren’t
enough, he went out and got
himself a little league baseball
team which he coaches in the

summer. Even seven children,
the little league baseball team,
and 20 years away irbm school
have not drained his energy
and desire to learn. He attends
an astronomy class and a math
class right along with students
22 years his junior.

He has an insatiable curios-
ity, which has undoubtedly been
an asset in his rather unusual
line of work. Specifically, his
work involves setting up vari-
ous experiments and demon-
strations for physics classes,
keeping the physics depart-
ment’ vast store of delicate
equipment in proper working
order, and even building a few
intricate pieces of physics
equipment himself when protes-
sors require it He recently
completed a spectroscope, an
optical device used for forming
light spectra for study,

If you are saying to your-
self, “That type of Work sounds
as if it might get complicated
at times," you're right. For
someone who has had no for
mal education in electronics or
physics —— and who didn’t know
a cathode ray tube from an
erg when he first started —
Pierce gives a good account of
himself.

Catch him sometime
conversation with a college
physics professor, and you’ll
have a tough time trying to
decide which gentleman is
supposed to have a string of
letters after his name. The
profs rely on him for all types
of general information and ads
vice, His excellent background
as a machinist and mechanic
combined with What he has
learned in the past two years
as a physics technician make
him a good reference source.

But he scoffs when referred
to as “really, quite a bright
fellow." “You can learn a lot,”
he notes, “by osmosis e sim-
ply absorbing what you see.”

If that's the case, his mind
is a sponge for physics facts,

After graduating from high
school, he spent six years in
the Navy, worked another six

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Between classes, 42-year—old Charles Pierce
sets up experiments for demonstrations by
Grinnell physics professors. While he has no
formal education in electronics or physics, he

hopes to complete Grinnell‘s college level
physics courses. He has been coordinator of
the technical aspects of the Physics Dept. for
the past two years.

 

as a lathe operator in the Vik-
ing Pump Cu, at Cedar Falls,
and until three years ago was
an automobile mechanic at a
Grinnell garage. He came to
the attention of Grinnell Col-
lege in 1967 when he was a 116'
troleum delivery salesman for
the Gulf Oil Co. His many
skills made him an attractive
candidate for the job as the
college’s physics technician.

His only regret is that he
didn’t find this job 20 years
sooner so he could have con-
tinued his education. From his
point of View, education is a
serious matter, ”not merely
because it helps you get a bet-
ter job, but also because it’s
important for a person to be
knowledgeable in many differ-
ent fields.” he says.

He’s teaching his children to
be “service minded,” which he
defines as “thinking about ca-
reers like nursing or teaching.
All of us have benefited from
others’ services,“ he points out,
“so I try to impress upon my
children that it is important for
us to return some of this serv-
ice.”

Being a 42-year-old college
student does have its prob
lems. “You can forget a lot in

20 years,” he says, 0f the two
courses he is now taking, math
is the more difficult for himr
He says that things are mov-
ing a little fast for him “I feel
I need some explanations that
the other students don't,” he
explains, “but I can't see hold-
ing up the rest of the class be-
cause of my own uncertainties.
Besides," he says, “dropping
the course this semester just
means starting it again next.”

Slipping behind a little doesn’t
complicate his life much. “At
42, grades don't make a whole
lot of difference," he says, It’s
obvious that he‘s satisfied with
just being able to go back to
school, an opportunity few
middleaged people get or take.

Pierce was at first apprehen-
sive about taking the job with
Grinnell College. But then he
thought of the tuition-free edu-
cation the college offers faculty
and staff children, anti, from
that moment on, the matter
was settled. He calculated that

it would cost him a little over
$84,000 to put all seven of his
children through School. While
a physics technician‘s salary
is nothing to sneeze at, he felt
that his bank account probably
would not survive the blow

He enjoys working with the
students and faculty in the
physics department and feels
there is less pressure on him
in this type of work. “As a me-
chanic, you could do a job
right and still have an unhap-
py customer," he recalls. Now-
adays, he can more or less dee
cide his own work schedule,
which has to be juggled around
classes and study hours.

One thing is for sure, how-
ever. He'll never have to face
another greasy automobile en-
gine or messy tool box in his
new line of work. Well, almost
never; he just had to excuse
himself —— to go show a fresh»
man student in introductory
physics how to use an instm~
ment called a socket wrench.

 

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