An Early Morning Lesson

I appreciated the Princeton Portrait on architecture professor William Shellman Jr. *41 in the last PAW. As a member of the Class of ’75 in architecture, I took lecture courses from him on aspects of architecture and design. Yes, as the essay described, he was a dedicated teacher and was maintaining a position on comparatively more “classical” tenets in architectural education as an older faculty member at the time, while there were other design currents flowing around too (professor Michael Graves, et al). Architecture students spent long hours late into the night and early morning hand drafting and sketching in those days on project assignments, and Professor Shellman’s lectures were morning classes. I remember well because one morning I drifted off during his class and he threw a piece of chalk at me (true story) and said “Washburn … wake up.” A lesson well learned.