Editor,
As an education major at UNM in the late 1980s, I went into Richard Berthold's 100-level history class knowing that the professor had a big mouth. Being a white male with libertarian tendencies, I thought that I would be somewhat immune to his barbs.
Then one day during lecture, a group of education majors walked past the classroom door. They were loudly discussing a class project and they broke Mr. Berthold's train of thought, one of his biggest pet peeves. He stood there for about five seconds looking at the floor with one hand on his forehead, then he looked up and said, "What can you say about a college that gets three-fourths of it's students from the bottom third of the incoming freshmen?"
Ouch! He got me after all!
I doubt that anybody in Berthold's classes makes it through a semester without taking a jab; he pops off all the time and speaks his mind constantly, often without forethought, as he has recently demonstrated. He also possesses an incredible command of his subject matter - he's without peer on ancient Greece and Rome. And unlike many of the professors at UNM, is an outstanding lecturer and teacher.
His love for history is such that he will actually get choked up making an important point, and need a second to compose himself. When's the last time you saw that brand of passion from an instructor?
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Part of what makes UNM a good school is that the right-wingers from Hobbs and Farmington, the hippies from Taos and Santa Fe, the Indians from Gallup and Zuni, the hard-core Norte§os from Mora and Las Vegas and all the rest come to Albuquerque.
They listen to each other, they share with each other, and most important, they take what they will from a very broad spectrum of ideas proffered by the faculty.
It's here that Richard Berthold makes his biggest contribution.
If Berthold gets fired for making an offensive remark, one that he greatly regrets and for which he has sincerely apologized, the academic climate at UNM will be dealt a great blow, and I'll love my alma mater a little less. Maybe more than a little.
Mark R. Harris
UNM Class of 1990 and Alamogordo resident
