DEVELOPMENT & ALUMNI
Donor Profile: John Longres, PhD ’70
Part of a Unique Social Psychology Program
Far right: Winning a gold medal at the 2010 Gay Games in Cologne, Germany. Right: Longres standing next to his garden gate.
“I went to Michigan during a very heady time…. I have a great love of that time in my life.” —John Longres
While in his second year of the MSW at the University of California, Los Angeles, John Longres, PhD ’70 had a marvelous brush with good fortune as a game show contestant on the 1960s hit, “You Don’t Say.” Not only did he have a chance to team up with Betty White and other celebrities, but he won five matches and enough prize money for a car. “I tootled off in my brand new Ford Mustang to begin my PhD program at the University of Michigan,” Longres said. Longres is quick to explain that U-M was a major experience in his life, and considered himself quite fortunate to attend the no longer available social psychology doctoral program through the School of Social Work. For a moment in their history, the departments of Psychology and Sociology organized a unique Social Psychology program, and he was thrilled to be part of it. “I went to Michigan during a very heady time,” Longres explained. “I’m a native New Yorker and discovered the meaning of my own ethnicity: my father was Cuban and my mother was Puerto Rican.
28 · University of Michigan School of Social Work