I consider myself most fortunate in that mentors played pivotal roles at every turning point in my intellectual and career development from collage onwards. At Brooklyn College the historian Donald Gerardi and the sociologist Roberta Satow fostered and nurtured my intellectual curiosity at higher levels of education. At Iowa State University, Hamilton Cravens and Harold Sharlin furthered that development, as did Arthur Mann, Lynn Vogel, Frank Breul, and Donnell Pappenfort, among others, at the University of Chicago. It’s difficult to single out one person who most influenced my intellectual development, though I feel most indebted to Arthur Mann who seemed to take a personal interest in me, perhaps because of his own Brooklyn roots and who immediately impressed me with statements to the effect that good historians come to terms with change and death while pursuing their work. His was an apprenticeship style of mentoring doctoral students, while encouraging intellectual exploration. One of my favorite Arthur Mann stories, recounted in Connecting the Dots, had to do with his agreeing to serve as a member of my dissertation committee. While discussing the prospect, I mentioned that I had a theory of social welfare that I wanted to incorporate into my dissertation, at which point he quipped to the effect that social theory had no place in historical scholarship. He not only agreed to serve anyway, but also defended the theoretical section of my historically oriented dissertation proposal over the objections of other reviewers who viewed theory as an integral component of dissertations. How all that worked out makes for an amusing and interesting story in Connecting the Dots.

Philip Gordon at the Arizona State Hospital and Jeanne Marsh at SSA played the most crucial roles regarding my career development: Phil encouraging me to pursue my MSW at Arizona State University and doctorate at the School of Social Service Administration, the University of Chicago; Jeanne encouraging me to stick with doctoral studies at SSA despite initial difficulty and subsequent employment at United Charities of Chicago, despite formidable challenges to carrying out credible research, and for supporting me throughout my academic career, especially regarding decisions about hiring, promotion, and tenure. What becomes clear in Connecting the Dots is how many times I had self-doubts – about my ability to do academic work in college and graduate school, about choice of study (history, sociology, social work), about whether I really wanted an academic career (remaining with the Arizona Department of Health Services, or United Charities of Chicago, whether I could do credible research (whether agency-based or academic), whether I could adjust to an academic environment that stressed the importance of grant writing and quantitative research methodologies, whether I could balance teaching, research, and service sufficiently well to do justice to each. Mentors helped me think through each of these challenges, whose outcomes were uncertain and whose related decision-making deliberations were often accompanied by existential angst. Roberta Satow provided crucial counsel when I deliberated about accepting an offer from Iowa State University, uprooting me from the confines of family and friends in Brooklyn, New York.  Harold Sharlin was there when I initially deliberated about doctoral study in the history and sociology of science at the University of Pennsylvania from which he had graduated and the immediate aftermath when I flunked out of the program. Connie Bennet was there when I learned to negotiate my way around the adult work world at the Arizona State Hospital, especially the professional pecking order with psychiatrists at the top. Arthur Mann, Lynn Vogel, Frank Breul, Donnell Pappenfort, and Jeanne Marsh among others were there when I equivocated about accepting the Director of Research position at United Charities of Chicago. A. Gerald Erickson were there when I learned to negotiate my way around the adult work world at United Charities of Chicago, especially courting Board Trustees and convincing Executive Staff peers of the importance of research in a family service agency.

While working at United Charities of Chicago, I was also a part-time lecturer at Loyola University. Murray Gruber, who had hired me in that part-time position and his colleague Thomas Meenaghan, as well as Jeanne Marsh, were there when I went back and forth about remaining at United Charities or pursuing an academic career. Murray Gruber was the “realist,” insisting that academic was not what it was cranked up to be, that I needed more realistic expectations than I seemed to have had at the time, but that I would invariably learn over time, in three different academic environments. Thomas Meenaghan, who would eventually become Dean of the Loyola School of Social Work and later Dean of the School of Social Work at New York University, was the “optimist,” extolling the increased opportunities that academic life offered and from which I could benefit. Jeanne Marsh advised that the choice was a win-win for me, that I would do well regardless. Connecting the Dots sorts out the dilemmas I faced and how I worked through them, providing the rationales based on my diary entries for doing what I did.