profile DUS advised him to choose a different major, a course of study purely for fun. “Eisenstat said to me, ‘You’re not doing this to get a better job,’” Palmer said. He began to flip through the Blue Book, and, by the time he finished the history section, he was “practically salivating.” He had made his choice. He even had one credit to count towards the new major: HIST 21b, taken in 1967. “All of a sudden, it became more than unfinished business. I realized I wanted to be stretched intellectually, and this could be an intellectual adventure.”
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efore Palmer could be readmitted, he had to complete two other university courses, so Palmer enrolled at Columbia last spring after he retired. This was to show Yale that, after 90 semesters out of school, he could still do academic work. “My first midterm at Columbia can only be described as an out-of-body experience,” Palmer said. “I had something like a 99 average on all the problem sets, and on the midterm I got a 53. I said, ‘Whoa, I need to learn how to take tests again.’ It took a while. But I got the hang of it at Columbia, so when I got here, it was, ‘OK, I’ve done this before.’” Thomas Olsen ’82, who taught a summer session class called “From Gutenberg to Google Books,” said Palmer’s greatest challenge was learning more “developed and layered” academic writing after years of writing “boiled down” reports and memos for his job at IBM. Olsen was also concerned that Palmer would have difficulty transitioning to the unique give-and-take environment of a small college seminar. “After all, he had had a career at IBM of making important decisions with real consequences.” Olsen quickly saw from class that he had no cause to worry — Palmer didn’t dominate the discussion or intimidate his classmates the way Olsen anticipated. Rather, the professional background seemed only to be an advantage. Palmer, Olsen recalls, “was able to focus his energies in a remarkable way, perhaps
as only a trained professional with he is three times as old as most students years of experience with pressures and and goes to bed at 9:30 p.m. deadlines and a totally adult sense of “I see these parties that start at 10 responsibility can.” p.m. and go until 2:30 a.m. — I vividly Palmer’s writing partner for a fall remember doing that when I was that history seminar, Joshua Penny ’13, age, but that’s not where I am these noticed that he was more diligent days,” Palmer laughs. and timely than fellow students, but, Instead, Palmer occasionally goes to unlike many other Yalies, he never tea at the Elizabethan Club and spends flaunted how swamped in work he the weekends in New York or on Long was. In a music seminar, Palmer was Island. At the end of last semester, he open about how difficult he found the and wife also hosted Palmer’s “Disasters material, far more honest than most in America” seminar for a dinner party students would dare to be, according in their apartment on Wooster Square. to professor Richard Lalli MUS ’86. “It’s “It’s tons of fun being married to rare for a student to say that, and if they a college student,” Priscilla says. “He do, it sounds like a complaint, as if it brings home his work, and we talk about were an unfair assignment. I think that it. It’s all very exciting.” Last fall, when comes with experience. I hope that the Palmer’s stepdaughter had a law exam others learn you can be that honest and on the same day as Stewart’s economics humble.” midterm, the pair commiserated about Palmer was surprised that an how much studying they both had to do. engineering major in his music seminar was taking the class Credit/D/Fail so almer remembers thinking last she wouldn’t have to worry about her August that the final two years of GPA. He was also shocked to find that completing his degree would pass students could drop a class after the slowly. Now he thinks, “I can’t possibly midterm if they don’t receive a good take all the courses I want to take in two grade. Compared to the 1960s, Palmer years.” says, today’s Yale is no more stressful, “One of the things I liked about my but it is more intense. He remembers job was that I got to learn something his classmates were less preoccupied new every 18 to 24 months,” Stewart with attaining a near-perfect GPA and said. “But once you know just enough spent less time on homework. to do the work, you do the work and But near the beginning of his return you’re done. Here, you’re learning stuff to Yale, Stewart also felt the pressure just for the sake of learning it. Where to obtain a good GPA: any readmitted else do you get to do that?” student is permanently expelled if he “Stewart brought a passion for the fails a course in the first two semesters. classroom that, I guess, comes only after Worried, Stewart spent his fall semester years of being out of one,” Olsen said. only studying and attending class. “It wasn’t until the semester was over almer has no postgraduation plans that I realized it really would take work yet, but he’ll consider going on to fail a course,” Stewart laughed. “I to complete a master’s degree in didn’t really believe it, and then I saw history. If one thing is certain, he won’t the grades coming out.” He thought, be “going off to rot on the beach.” “Oh, you mean you could have gotten Palmer has never attended a reunion a zero on all the homework and still for the class of 1969, but he noticed that passed the course?” 2014 will be its 45th anniversary. He just Now, without the pressure of grades might show up for that reunion a couple weighing him down, Palmer hopes to of weeks after he graduates next May. be more involved in campus activities. But a college social life is difficult when
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