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I had no idea what a dean actually did on a college campus.
				I just knew that deans were bad, bad guys.
				I&rsquo;d seen movies in which freshmen who&rsquo;d done things like raid the girls&rsquo; dorms were called in by these fearsome men with paneled offices. The results were never pretty.
				Now, I had to face a man with that title in my quest to become a college student and I was &#8211; to put it mildly - scared.
				Welcome to the world of college admission, 1950s style.
				What stirs this primal memory? I read recently that the University of California system will soon abolish the storied SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and its cousin the ACT (American College Testing). California says it will develop a new means of evaluating student applicants, including a test of its own devising.
				Whatever California comes up with, though, it can&rsquo;t be as mind-blowingly terrifying as having to face a top college official who&rsquo;d grill you as to why you wanted to enter his demesne and then probably take out a big rubber stamp and pronounce your fate.
				In my 1950s high school day, you didn&rsquo;t have to worry so much about national tests, because they weren&rsquo;t required. Instead, colleges tended to administer their own day-long admissions exams &#8211; which you couldn&rsquo;t prepare for because they were totally unpredictable. If you passed the test, it was on to an interview with a campus luminary so that you could be evaluated personally.
				So it was that on a freezing cold Saturday morning in the winter of 1959-1960 I made my way down from Wilkes-Barre&rsquo;s East Market Street to Chase Hall on the Wilkes College campus, there to be interviewed by Dean John Whitby.
				I swear that to this day I cannot remember a question Dean Whitby asked or an answer I gave. All I do remember is that so gracious and friendly was this gentleman that I wondered if I&rsquo;d strayed into the wrong office. This wasn&rsquo;t the way deans operated in the movies.
				Substantially the same thing happened a few Saturdays later up the road at the big main building of King&rsquo;s College. This time it was the registrar, the Rev. Thomas Sheehy, who was to do the honors.
				I&rsquo;d at least passed by the campus before. I recall that the sight of men wearing black cassocks, carrying briefcases and striding purposefully about was enough to tell me &ldquo;Hey, this isn&rsquo;t Sunday school, buddy.&rdquo;
				As I contemplated my interview, I suspected a registrar had something to do with keeping big books that told whether you&rsquo;d be kept around or invited to consider other possibilities &#8211; like leaving.
				But Father Sheehy must have seen a thousand or more cases like mine. He was an engaging fellow, quick with a joke. Of course, I shook all the way through and recall nothing of that interview either.
				Bottom line: I passed both entrance exams, I survived both meetings and I received two letters of acceptance (ultimately opting for King&rsquo;s). Coming up with the money was not a huge problem. The schools charged around $500 a year at the time.
				Today, I have good feeling for both schools. I&rsquo;ve taught a few classes at King&rsquo;s, and I&rsquo;m taking courses at Wilkes.
				But I really hope there&rsquo;s an afterlife so that I can look up Dean Whitby and Father Sheehy and ask them what I&rsquo;d said to them on those long-ago Saturday mornings to get into their schools.
				That is &#8211; if I can qualify for the interviews.

Remember When: Real-life college deans much friendlier than movie version