Richard C. Leonard earned the Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University (1972) and has taught at the college and graduate level. His career includes work as an editor, contributing writer, and currently authors books and articles for Laudemont Press and Laudemont Ministries.
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When preparing graduate school term papers, one seldom thinks about publication issues. In this instance, I should have thought this one through a little more thoroughly.
I was taking a course in American church history at Boston University Graduate School, back in the 1960s, as part of my Ph.D. requirement. Having discovered the Unitarians upon coming to Boston from the Midwest, I became interested in the history of the denomination — how they emerged out of the more orthodox Congregationalism of New England. So I decided to write a paper on that topic.
I looked up the sources in the School of Theology library and other collections, and found some interesting ones. A valuable source was “The Epic of Unitarianism” by a scholar named David B. Parke, of which I made good use. Professor Richard Cameron, the instructor, had us read our papers to the class, and I read mine and cited some of the sources.
How embarrassed I was to discover, after reading my paper, that another member of the class was the same David B. Parke! Happily, I had not directly cited his book in my presentation. In fact, he told me afterward that I had discovered a source or two of which he was unaware. But I had read through my term paper blissfully ignorant of the fact that an expert on the subject was in my audience. The episode had the potential to be far more embarrassing than it actually was.
Incidentally, Professor Cameron had been around a long time, and his lecture notes were so old they had turned yellow. Once he started to lecture, looked down at his lectern, and turned his notes around. They had been upside down.
I'm not sure where the embarrassment factor comes in here. I understand that you might have felt awkward knowing that an expert in the field was sitting right there listening to your paper, but how is that embarrassing? How could it have turned into something negative? To me, it's all good. You flattered him with your nod to him as a prime source, and you helped him find some new research. To me, that's all good, and I just don't see the downside in this incident.
The fact that you were all in the same class together, yet apparently knew nothing about each other's areas of expertise is a bit surprising…but that's more a failing of the instructor than it is of you, and it truly has nothing to do with your paper.
So…unless you flatly contradicted this guy, and made no bones about it, I can't see how this is any kind of a cautionary and/or embarrassing tale. I must have missed something in translation!
Janny
Being aware of my audience helps me to be a bit more tactful. I wouldn't say it changes who I am, but at the same time it makes me more aware of the way I'm presenting myself.
Perhaps I wasn't clear. I didn't know David Parke was in the class. I knew there was a "Mr. Park" but failed to connect the dots. This was a graduate-school level class, people who probably had at least one degree beyond the bachelor's, and the professor never did anything to introduce us to one another. (That wasn't Dr. Cameron's style, anyway.) If I had inadvertently mentioned David Parke's book in my presentation, and then it developed that he was in the class and I hadn't been aware of it, my embarrassment would have been real enough!
Adding to my previous comment: It finally dawned on me, during the ensuing class discussion, who this "Mr. Park" really was. I would never have expected the author of one of my sources to be in the class. I approached him privately, half-apologetically, after class and his response was very kind, with no flaunting of superior knowledge of the subject — a true "gentleman and a scholar."